THE 
PARABOLIC     TEACHING    OF     CHRIST. 


"H.  &  S."  DOLLAR  LIBRARY 

Similar  to  this  Volume 

THE  TRAINING  OF  THE  TWELVE.  By  Prof.  A. 
B.  Bruce,  D.  D. 

THE  PARABOLIC  TEACHING  OF  CHRIST.  By 
Prof.  A.  B.  Bruce,  D.D. 

THE  MIRACULOUS  ELEMENT  IN  THE  GOS- 
PELS.   By  Prof.  A.  B.  Bruce,  D.  D. 

THE  HUMILIATION  OF  CHRIST.  By  Prof.  A.  B. 
Bruce,  D.  D. 

THE  LIFE  OF  HENRY  DRUMMOND.  By  Princi- 
pal George  Adam  Smith. 

GESTA  CHRISTI.    By  Charles  Loring  Brace. 

THE  APOCRYPHAL  AND  LEGENDARY  LIFE 
OF  CHRIST.    By  J.  DeQuincy  Donehoo. 

INDIA:  ITS  LIFE  AND  THOUGHT.  By  John  P. 
Jones,  D.D. 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  RELI- 
GION.   By  Principal  A.  M.  Fairbairn. 

PULPIT  PRAYERS.    By  Alexander  Maclaren,  D.  D. 

LECTURES  ON  THE  HISTORY  OF  PREACH- 
ING.   By  John  Ker,  D.D. 

RELIGIONS  OF  AUTHORITY  AND  THE  RELI- 
GION OF  THE  SPIRIT.     By  Auguste  Sabatier. 

THE  LIFE  OF  CHRIST  AS  REPRESENTED  IN 
ART.    By  Dean  Frederick  W.  Farrar. 


THE  ^  JUN 

Parabolic  Teaching 
of  Christ 

A  Systematic  and  Critical  Study 

OF  THE 

PARABLES  OF  OUR  LORD 

BY 

ALEXANDER  BALMAIN  BRUCE,  D.D. 

Professor  of  Apologetics  and  New  Testament  Exegesis,  Free  Church 
College,  Glasgow. 

Fourth  Revised  Edition 


HODDER  & STOUGHTON 

NEW  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


PREFATORY   NOTE. 


This  Third  Edition  of  "  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of 
Christ"  has  been  carefully  revised  by  me.  For  the 
benefit  of  those  who  possess  the  earlier  editions,  it 
may  be  stated  that  no  material  change  has  been  made 
in  the  text.  The  changes  consist  chiefly  in  the  cor- 
rection of  errors.  I  take  this  opportunity  of  returning 
thanks  for  the  very  appreciative  manner  in  which  this 
book  has  been  received  in  this  country  by  clergymen 
and  other  friends  connected  with  all  denominations.  I 
feel  as  if  I  must,  in  some  measure,  have  succeeded  in 
reflecting  the  spirit  of  Christ  our  Master  and  Lord  in 
these  studies  of  His  incomparable  sayings.  May  He 
continue  to  bless  them  in  spite  of  all  their  imperfec- 
tions. 

N«w  Yowc,  188*  A.    B.    BRUCE. 


PREFACE. 


No  apology  is  deemed  necessary  for  the  publication  of  a 
new  work  on  the  Parables  contained  in  the  Gospels.  Books 
of  a  devotional  or  homiletical  character  on  some  or  all  of 
these  abound  ;  but  of  works  of  a  more  elaborate  and  critical 
description  on  the  subject,  the  number  in  the  English  tongue 
is  small  Without  disparagement  to  such  as  exist,  it  is 
believed  that  a  fresh  attempt  to  unfold  in  a  scholarly  yet 
genial  manner  the  didactic  significance  of  these  beautiful 
sayings  of  our  Lord  will  not  be  unwelcome.  How  far  the 
present  publication  supplies  what  is  wanted  it  is  for  others  to 
judge.  A  feature  of  the  work  is  the  classification  of  the 
parables  under  general  heads,  making  available  thought- 
affinities  for  the  elucidation  of  their  meaning.  Another 
feature  is  strict  adherence  to  the  historical  method  of  exegesis 
as  distinct  from  the  allegorising  method  pursued  by  the 
Fathers,  and  largely  favoured  by  the  chief  English  writer  on 
the  subject,  whose  strength  and  weakness  both  lie  in  the 
extent  to  which  he  has  laid  patristic  literature  under  contri- 
bution for  the  interpretation  of  the  parables  and  the  literary 
enrichment  of  his  pages.  The  author  of  this  work  has  sought 
help  from  the  moderns  more  than  from  the  ancients.  He 
has  kept  recent  commentators  steadily  in  view,  while  avoiding 
the  dryness  of  the  commentaries,  and  abstaining  from  a 
parade  of  authorities.     In  appreciating  the  theological  import 


vi  Prefac*. 

of  the  parables  he  has  had  regard  to  the  comparative  method 
of  New  Testament  theology,  recognising  distinct  doctrinal 
types,  and  noting  the  resemblances  and  differences  between 
these.  In  the  ascertainment  of  the  correct  text,  advantage 
has  been  taken  of  the  latest  labours  of  scholars,  including, 
of  course,  the  Revised  Version,  and  the  learned  and  most 
valuable  edition  of  the  Greek  Testament  edited  by  Drs. 
Westcott  and  Hort.  The  introduction  is  confined  to  a 
brisf  explanation  of  the  method  adopted  for  the  distribution 
of  the  materials  which  form  the  subject  of  study.  Occasional 
observations  on  topics  usually  included  in  general  disserta- 
tions on  the  parables  will  be  found  scattered  throughout 
the  book. 

The  Author. 


CONTENTS. 


tan 

INTfcOIHJCTORY     «.        „        ...        ,„        ^,        ^.  I 


BOOK   I. 

Cjjiortiif  $  arable*. 

CHAPTER  L 
THE    SOWER,    or,   the    Word    of    the    Kingdom  to 

BE    DIVERSELY     RECEIVED    ACCORDING     TO     THE     MORAL 

Condition  or  Hbarers  ...       ...       ...       ...       w       u 

CHAPTER  IL 
THE  TARES  AND  THE  DRAG-NET;  or,  A  Mixture  or 

Good  and  Evil  to  be  in  the  Kingdom  till  the  End       3J 

CHAPTER  HL 
THE  TREASURE  AND  THE  PEARL;  OR,  THE  KINGDOM 

or  God  the  summum  Bonum        ■»■»*'  «i  '  "LL   '  idl 

CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  MUSTARD  SEED  AND  THE  LEAVEN;  or,  the 
Kingdom  or  God  destined  to  grow  to  Greatness  in 
Numbers  and  in  Influence  ...       «.       ^.       ^.       ^.       99 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE  BLADE,  THE  EAR,  AND  THE  FULL  CORN ;  or, 

GROWTH  W  THE  KINGDOM  GRADUAL  AND  SLOW  ...  ...        117 


viii  Contents, 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  SELFISH  NEIGHBOUR  ANDTHE  UNJUST  JUDGE; 
or,  the  Certainty  of  an  Ultimate  Answer  to  Per- 
sistent Prayer  for  the  Coming  of  the  Kingdom    ...      144 

CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  PARABLE  OF  EXTRA  SERVICE;  OR,  the  Exact- 
ing Demands  of  the  Kingdom,  and  the  Temper  need- 
ful to  meet  them        ... 168 

CHAPTER  VIIL 

THE  HOURS,  THE  TALENTS.  AND  THE  POUNDS;  OR, 

Work  and  Wages  in  the  Kingdom  of  God    ...       ~.      178 


BOOK  II. 
$\t  parables  of  (grace. 

INTRODUCTORY      *•        «•        «•      229 

CHAPTER  I. 
THE  TWO  DEBTORS ;  or,  Much  Forgiveness,  Much  Lovk     337 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE  LOST  SHEEP,  THE  LOST  COIN,  AND  THE  LOST 
SON  ;  or,  the  Joy  of  Finding  Persons  and  Things 

L.OST  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  ...  m.        '59 

CHAPTER  III. 

THE     CHILDREN     OF    THE    BRIDE  -  CHAMBER ;    cm, 

Christ's  Apology  for  the  Joy  of  His  Disciples  ...     39$ 


Contents.  ix 


CHAPTER  IV. 

FAGC 

THE  LOWEST  SEATS  AT  FEASTS,  AND  THE  PHARISEE 
AND   THE    PUBLICAN  ;  OR,  THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD  FOR 

the  Humble        ..*       ...     309 

CHAPTER  V. 
THE  GREAT  SUPPER;  or,  the  Kingdom  for  the  Hungry      325 

CHAPTER  VI. 
THE  GOOD  SAMARITAN  ;  or,  Charity  the  True  Sanctity      343 

CHAPTER  VII. 

THE    UNJUST    STEWARD;    OR,   THE    REDEEMING    POWER 

of  Charity  355 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

DIVES  AND  LAZARUS,  AND  THE  UNMERCIFUL  SER- 
VANT;  or,  Inhumanity  and  Implacability  the  Un- 
pardonable Sins  ... ...       ...       ...     376 


BOOK  III. 

®fe*  |Ja*aMes  of  Jteugment. 

chapter  1. 
the  children  in  the  market-place;  or,  th» 

Judgment  of  Jesus  on  Jewish  Contemporaries         ...     413 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE  BARREN  FIG-TREE;  OR,  THE  WITHDRAWAL  OF 
Israel's  Privilege  in  Favour  of  the  Gentiles 
foreshadowed    437 


Contents, 


CHAPTER  III. 


»AM 


THE  TWO  SONS;  or,  Israel's  Leaders  Charged  with 

the  Vice  or  Insincerity       »•«•.«.     43I 

CHAPTER  IV. 

THE    WICKED     HUSBANDMEN;  OR,  THE    INIQUITY    or 

Israel's  Leaders  Exposed  and  their  Doom  Declared     447 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE   WEDDING-FEAST  AND   THE   WEDDING-ROBE; 

or,  the  Doom  or  Despisers  and  Abusers  or  Grace  ...     459 

CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  UNFAITHFUL   UPPER   SERVANT ;   OR,  THE  JUDG- 
MENT  Or  DEGENERATE   MINISTERS   OF  THE  KINGDOM     ...        485 

CHAPTER  VII. 

THE   TEN   VIRGINS  ;    or,  the   Judgment  or  rooLiSH 

Citizens  or  the  Kingdom     »».   M   -«■':«•'  •■>     496 


TABLE  OF  THE   PARABLES 

CONSIDERED  IN   THIS  WORK. 


M6l 

It  The  Sower           «.       ...       •*•       ...       «.  13 

a.  The  Tares             „        ...  41 

J.  The  Drag-net       „        63 

4-  The  Treasure       70 

5.  The  Pearl _        ...        ...        ...  7I 

«.  The  Mustard  Seed         „        ...  93 

7.  The  Leaven          ^.  106 

*.  The  Blade,  the  Ear,  and  the  Full  Corn      ...  117 

9.  The  Selfish  Neighbour 149 

10.  The  Unjust  Judge          157 

11.  The  Parable  of  Extra   Service  (Unprofitable 

Servants)        ,68 

la.  The  Hours  (Labourers  in  the  Vineyard)     ...  183 

13.  The  Talents         „,  ^ 

14-  The  Pounds         „        ...  2I$ 

15.  The  Two  Debtors          2y7 

16.  The  Lost  Sheep             .. 264 

W-  The  Lost  Drachma        ...        

18.  The  Lost  Son 


■•        ...        ...        ...  274 

••        ...        ...        ...  279 

19-    The  Children  of  the  Bride-chamber 295 

aa     The  Lowest  Seats  at  Feasts 

31.    The  Pharisee  and  the  Publican         , 

31.    The  Great  Supper  ...        ...        ...        „,  32$ 

*3-     Tlte  Good  Samaritan     ...        ^.        y^t 

34     The  Unjust  Steward      ...        _       ...        ...  3SS 


309 
3ia 


<ii  Table  of  the  Parables, 


PAoa 


35.  Dives  and  Lazarus         ...        m        376 

26.  The  Unmerciful  Servant  ...        ...        ...  400 

27.  The  Children  in  the  Market-Place     413 

28.  The  Barren  Fig-tree ...  427 

29.  The  Two  Sons ..        438 

30.  The  Wicked  Husbandmen       447 

31.  The  Wedding- Feast  and  the  Wedding- Robe  459 

32.  The   Unfaithful  Upper  Servant  490 

33.  The  Ten  Virgins  *»■•••••       M  496 


PARABLE-GERMS. 

The  Physician „,  234 

The  New  Patch  on  the  Worn  Garment 302 

The  New  Wine  in  the  Old  Skins 302 

The  Rejected  Stone 457 

The  Porter         486 

The  Waiting  Servants  487 

The  Good-man  and  the  Thief         ...        ...        ...  487 

The  Wise  and  Foolish  Builders     «•«•'«■  jof 


INTRODUCTORY. 


THE  Paiables  of  our  Lord  were  of  an  incidental  character; 
and  perhaps  the  best  way  of  studying  them  is  not  to  isolate 
them  from  the  general  history  of  His  ministry  for  separate 
consideration,  but  rather  to  look  at  them  as  parts  of  a  larger 
whole  in  connection  with  the  particular  occasions  which  called 
them  forth.  And  yet  it  is,  to  say  the  least,  a  very  natural  and 
legitimate  procedure  to  take  these  parables,  which  form  so 
large,  so  peculiar,  and  so  precious  a  portion  of  Christ's  teach- 
ing, apart  by  themselves,  and  make  them  the  subject  of  a 
special  study.  This,  accordingly,  has  often  been  done  already, 
and  doubtless  it  will  often  be  done  again  while  the  world  lasts. 
We  propose  to  add  one  more  to  the  number  of  the  attempts 
which  have  been  made  to  ascertain  the  meaning  of  the  para- 
bolic utterances  of  Incarnate  Wisdom.  We  enter  on  the  task 
with  much  diffidence,  yet  not  without  the  humble  hope  of  being 
useful.  Our  one  desire  is  to  get  at  the  kernel  of  spiritual 
truth  enclosed  within  the  parabolic  shell :  to  get  at  it  for  our- 
selves, and  to  communicate  it  at  the  same  time  to  others. 
The  beauty  of  the  parables  we,  in  common  with  all  readers  01 
the  Gospels,  greatly  admire  ;  their  fidelity  to  nature,  and  to 
the  customs  of  the  time  in  which  they  were  spoken,  we  fully 
appreciate  ;  but  we  should  not  think  of  undertaking  an  exposi- 
tion of  them  if  we  had  nothing  more  important  to  do  than  to 
play  the  part  of  an  art-critic  showing  how  skilfully  the  para- 
bolic picture  is  painted  in  all  its  details,  or  of  an  antiquarian 
showing  how  conformable  is  the  parabolic  representation  to  all 
customs  of  the  time  and  place. 

In   entering  on   an    exposition   of   the   parables,  we    are 
confronted   at  once  with  the  question  of  method.     In  what 

B 


a  l"he  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ, 

order  shall  we  consider  the  subjects  of  our  study  ?  Shall  we 
take  them  up  as  they  occur  in  the  several  Gospels,  beginning 
with  Matthew,  then  going  on  through  Mark  and  Luke,  as 
has  been  done  by  some  writers  ?  *  or  shall  we  attempt  a 
classification  on  a  principle  ? — and  if  so,  on  what  principle  is 
the  classification  to  be  made  ?  A  merely  casual  method  of 
arrangement  is  certainly  not  desirable,  if  there  be  any  thought- 
affinities  between  the  parables,  any  recognisable  characteristics 
common  to  several  of  them,  according  to  which  they  can  be 
arranged  in  groups  ;  for  disregard  of  such  affinities  means 
loss  of  the  light  which  related  parables  are  fitted  to  throw 
upon  each  other.  Now,  several  writers  have  thought  they 
could  discover  certain  resemblances  between  certain  parables, 
and  on  the  basis  of  such  real  or  supposed  resemblances  have 
built  schemes  of  classification  by  which  they  have  been 
guided  in  their  exposition.  One  writer,  for  example,  the 
author  of  an  elaborate  and  voluminous  work  on  the  parables, 
takes  note  of  the  fact  that  some  of  the  parables  have  ex- 
planations attached  to  them,  while  others  remain  unexplained  ; 
and,  asking  himself  the  question  what  may  be  the  reason  ol 
the  difference,  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  the  unexplained 
parables  are  allegories  and  prophecies  meant  to  hide  the 
truth, — the  truth  hid  being  not  so  much  a  doctrine  as  a 
future  event,  which  before  the  time  is  a  mystery,  arcanum, 
or  secret, — while  the  explained  parables  teach  a  doctrine  or 
moral  lesson  having  a  bearing  on  present  practice.  In  this 
way  the  writer  referred  to  arrives  at  a  distribution  of  the 
parables  into  two  great  classes — the  prophetic  and  the  moral, 
' — the  former  containing  an  esoteric  and  the  latter  an  exoteric 
system  of  doctrine.2  This  classification  has  met  with  very 
little  approval,  and  perhaps  its  failure  has  had  a  considerable 
effect  in  deterring  other  writers  from  all  attempts  at  method- 
ical arrangement  as  futile.  It  does  not  follow,  however,  that 
because  one  attempt  has  proved  a  signal  failure,  all  others 
must  be  equally  abortive.  We  believe,  for  our  part,  that  a 
grouping  of  the  parables  based  on  real  and  important  re- 
semblances, and  at  least  approximately  correct  and  complete, 

1  Archbishop  Trench,  and  after  him  Mr.  Arnot. 

*  Greswell :  'An  Exposition  of  the  Parables  aud  of  other  parts  of  the 
Gospels,'  in  five  rols. 


Introductory.  3 

is  possible ;  and  without  staying  to  enumerate  all  the  methods 
of  grouping  which  we  have  met  with  in  books,  we  shall 
proceed  at  once  to  indicate  the  principle  of  distribution  on 
which  we  ourselves  mean  to  proceed. 

We  observe,  then,  that  the  teaching  ministry  of  our  Lord 
falls  naturally  asunder  into  three  divisions.  Christ  was  a 
Master  or  Rabbi,  with  disciples  whom  He  made  it  His  busi- 
ness to  instruct ; l  He  was  an  Evangelist,  going  about  doing 
good  among  the  common  people,  and  preaching  the  gospel  of 
the  kingdom  to  the  poor ;  and  He  was  a  Prophet,  not  merely 
or  chiefly  in  the  predictive  sense  of  the  word,  but  specially  in 
the  sense  that  He  was  one  who  proclaimed  in  the  hearing  of 
His  contemporaries  the  great  truth  of  the  moral  government 
of  God  over  the  world  at  large,  and  over  Israel  in  particular, 
and  the  sure  doom  of  the  impenitent  under  that  righteous 
government.  Now,  the  parables  may  be  conveniently,  and  as 
we  believe  usefully,  distributed  into  three  groups,  correspond- 
ing to  these  three  departments  of  Christ's  ministry.  Indeed, 
we  might  go  further,  and  say  that  the  whole  public  life  of 
Jesus,  as  related  in  the  Gospels,  might  without  forcing  be 
ranged  under  the  three  heads  :  the  Master,  the  Evangelist,  the 
Prophet.  Under  the  first  head  comes  all  that  relates  to  the 
training  of  the  twelve  for  the  apostolate  ;  under  the  second 
Christ's  miscellaneous  activity  as  a  Teacher  and  Healer  among 
the  general  population,  as  the  Good  Shepherd  seeking  to  save 
the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel ;  under  the  third,  the  ex- 
tensive materials  relating  to  His  bitter  conflict  as  the  witness 
for  truth  and  righteousness  with  the  unbelieving  political  and 
religious  leaders  of  Jewish  society.  When  all  that  belongs 
naturally  to  these  three  divisions  has  been  taken  up,  not 
much  of  the  Evangelic  narrative  remains.  But  our  business 
at  present  is  with  the  parables  only,  not  with  the  whole  public 
ministry  of  Jesus;  and  we  repeat  the  statement  already 
made,  that  the  parables  may  be  distributed  into  three  groups 
answering  to  the  three  titles,  the  Master,  the  Evangelist,  the 
Prophet.  First  there  is  a  class  of  parables  which  may  be 
distinguished  as  the  theoretic,  containing  the  general  truth, 

1  Schoettgen,  in  his  '  Horse  Hebraicse  et  Talmudicae,'  enunciates,  and 
seeks  to  establish,  the  thesis  Christus  Rabbinorum  Summits:  vide  '  Rabbi' 
nicarum  Lectionum,'  cap.  L 

B  2 


4  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ, 

or  what  has  been  called  the  '  metaphysic ' x  of  the  Divine 
kingdom.  Then  there  is  a  large  group  which  may  legiti- 
mately claim  to  be  called  distinctively  the  evangelic — their 
burden  being  grace,  the  mercy  and  the  love  of  God  to  the 
sinful  and  the  miserable — in  some  more  obviously  and  directly, 
in  others  by  implication  rather  than  by  express  statement, 
but  none  the  less  really  and  effectively.  Then,  lastly,  there 
is  a  group  which  may  be  characterised  as  the  prophetic  ;  using 
the  term,  let  it  be  once  more  explained,  not  in  the  predictive 
so  much  as  in  the  ethical  sense,  to  convey  the  idea  that  in 
this  class  of  parables  Jesus,  as  the  messenger  of  God,  spoke 
words  of  rebuke  and  warning  to  an  evil  time.  Proceeding 
upon  this  classification,  we  in  effect  adopt  as  our  motto  the 
words  of  the  Apostle  Paul :  "  The  fruit  of  the  light  is  in 
all  goodness  and  righteousness  and  truth," 2 — the  last  word, 
1  truth,'  answering  to  the  first  group  ;  the  second,  '  righteous- 
ness,' answering  to  the  last  group  ;  and  the  first, '  goodness,' 
answering  to  the  middle  group.  Christ  was  the  Light  of  the 
world ;  and  in  His  parabolic  teaching  He  let  His  light  shine 
upon  men  in  beautiful  prismatic  rays,  and  the  precious  fruit 
is  preserved  for  our  use  in  three  groups  of  parables  :  first,  the 
theoretic  parables,  containing  the  general  truth  concerning  the 
kingdom  of  God  ;  second,  the  evangelic  parables,  setting  forth 
the  Divine  goodness  and  grace  as  the  source  of  salvation  and 
the  law  of  Christian  life ;  third,  the  prophetic  parables,  pro- 
claiming the  righteousness  of  God  as  the  Supreme  Ruler, 
rewarding  men  according  to  their  works. 

The  foregoing  classification  has  not  been  got  up  for  the 
occasion,  but  has  insinuated  itself  into  our  mind  without  any 
seeking  on  our  part,  in  connection  with  our  studies  on  the 
Gospels.  Nor  do  we  lay  claim  to  any  originality  in  con- 
nection therewith,  except  such  as  consists  in  independently 
arriving  at  a  conclusion  which  has  commended  itself  to  other 
minds.  We  are  happy  to  find  that  we  do  not  stand  alone 
in  recognising  the  distinctions  indicated,  and  that  there  is 
an  increasing  consensus  of  opinion  in  favour  of  a  classification 
based    thereon.3      Differences    of    opinion,   of    course,   may 

1  Keim,  '  Jesu  von  Nazara,'  ii.  447. 

*  Ephesians  v.  9,  where  the  approved  reading  is,  i  ydp  Kapirbc  roi 
furbf  iv  iraay  ayaOwavvy  Kai  Sticaioavvy  Kai  aXrjQei^. 

•  Among  writers  who  group  the  parables  in  a  way  similar  to  that  gives 


Introductory.  5 

obtain  as  to  the  precise  terms  by  which  the  different  classes 
are  to  be  described,  or  even  as  to  the  number  of  separate 
classes  to  be  recognised,  as  also  in  regard  to  the  class  under 
which  this  or  that  parable  is  to  be  ranged ;  but  there  is  a 
general  concurrence  among  recent  writers  as  to  the  realky 
and  the  importance  of  the  threefold  distinction  above  indi- 
cated. Not  only  so ;  another  interesting  fact  has  attracted 
the  attention  of  many :  viz.  that  the  Evangelists — more 
definitely  Matthew  and  Luke,  for  Mark  has  very  few  parables 
in  his  Gospel — stand  in  distinct  relations  to  the  several  groups 
of  parables.  Most  of  Matthew's  parables  belong  to  the  first 
and  third  groups  ;  most  of  Luke's  to  the  second.  This  fact 
waj  signalised  long  ago  by  one  whose  name  will  ever  be  held 
in  honour  in  connection  with  the  literature  of  our  subject;1 
and  it  has  recently  been  proclaimed  with  remarkable  emphasis 
and  felicity  of  language  by  Renan,  in  his  charming  chapter 
on  the  Gospel  of  Luke,  in  the  fifth  volume  of  his  work  on  the 
•  Origins  of  Christianity.'  "  There  is  hardly,"  he  remarks,  "  an 
anecdote,  a  parable  peculiar  to  Luke,  which  breathes  not  the 
spirit  of  mercy  and  of  appeal  to  sinners.  The  only  word  of 
Jesus  a  little  hard  which  has  been  preserved,  becomes  with 
him  an  apologue  full  of  indulgence  and  patience.  The  un- 
fruitful tree  must  not  be  cut  down  too  quickly.  The  good 
gardener  opposes  himself  to  the  anger  of  the  proprietor, 
and  demands  that  the  tree  be  manured  before  it  be  finally 
condemned.  The  Gospel  of  Luke  is  by  excellence  the  gospel 
of  pardon,  and  of  pardon  obtained  by  faith." 2  The  fact  is 
unquestionable,  though  the  use  made  of  it  by  the  Tubingen 
school  of  critics,  and  partly  by  M.  Renan  himself,  may  be 
very  questionable  indeed.  We  cannot  approve  of  the  opinion 
which  regards  the  third  Evangelist  as  a  theological  partisan, 
who  not  only  selected,  but  manufactured  or  modified,  facts  to 
serve  the  cause  he  had  espoused — that  of  Pauline  universalisra 
as  against  Judaistic  exclusivism.8     But  we  do  most  cordially 

above,  may  be  named  Plumptre,  in  Art.  Parable  in  '  Smith's  Dictionary,' 
and  Lange,  *  Bibelwerk,'  on  Matthew  xiii.  Vide  also  his  '  Leben  Jesu,' 
voL  I.,  book  ii. 

1  Archbishop  Trench,  *  Notes  on  the  Parables,'  Introductory  Essay,  p. 
29,  Ed.  xiv. 

•  '  Les  Evangiles,'  p.  266. 

•  Hilgenfeld,  in  his  '  Einleitung  in  das  Neue  Testament/  p.  573,  finds 


6  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ. 

recognise  Luke  as  an  earnest  believer  in  the  gospel  Paul 
preached — a  gospel  of  pure  grace,  and  therefore  a  gospel  for 
all  the  world  on  equal  terms  ;  and  we  perceive  clearly  traces 
of  his  Paulinism,  using  the  word  not  in  a  controversial  but 
in  a  descriptive  sense,  throughout  his  Gospel.  In  searching 
among  the  literary  materials  out  of  which  he  constructed  his 
story,  he  manifestly  had  a  quick  eye  for  everything  that 
tended  to  show  that  the  gospel  preached  by  Christ  was  really 
and  emphatically  good  news  from  God,  a  manifestation  of 
Divine  philanthropy  and  grace,  and  a  manifestation  in  which 
the  whole  world  was  interested.  Hence  the  prominence  given 
to  such  narratives  as  exhibited  Jesus  as  the  Friend  of  the 
poor ;  hence  the  introduction  of  incidents  in  which  Samaritans 
appear  to  advantage  in  comparison  with  Jews,  or  as  attracting 
Christ's  compassion  while  objects  of  Jewish  prejudice  and 
hatred  ;  hence  the  preservation  in  the  third  Gospel  of  such 
parables  as  those  which  together  constitute  Christ's  apology 
for  loving  the  sinful :  the  Two  Debtors,  the  Straying  Sheep, 
the  Lost  Piece  of  Money,  and  the  Prodigal  Son ;  and  such 
others  as  the  Good  Samaritan,  the  Supper,  the  Pharisee  ar.d 
Publican,  and  even,  we  will  venture  to  add,  the  Unjust 
Steward,  and  the  Rich  Man  and  Lazarus.  It  is  of  the  utmost 
importance  to  recognise  this  peculiarity  of  Luke's  Gospel  in 
all  its  breadth,  not  merely  as  a  fact  of  literary  or  critical 
interest,  but  as  one  having  a  direct  practical  bearing  on 
interpretation.  One  who  leaves  this  fact  out  of  view  runs 
great  risk  of  frequently  missing  the  right  track  as  an  inter- 
preter, while  one  who  ever  keeps  it  in  his  eye  will  often  be 
guided  at  once  to  the  true  meaning  of  a  narrative.  We  must, 
of  course,  be  on  our  guard  against  giving  a  one-sided  pre- 
dominance to  the  characteristic  in  question,  as  if  Luke  had 
only  one  idea  in  his  mind  in  writing  his  Gospel ;  and  gener- 
ally in  our  interpretation  of  the  different  Gospels  we  must 
beware  of  imagining  the  writers  to  have  been  so  much  under 
the  influence  of  a  particular  purpose  as  to  have  excluded 
everything  that  did  not  directly  or  indirectly  bear  thereon. 
It  is  characteristic  of  the  negative  school  of  criticism  thus  to 
treat  the  Gospels  as  exclusively  writings  of  tendency,  to  the 

a  trace  of  a  dogmatic  leaning  to  Paulinism,  in  the  expression  "lest  they 
should  believe  and  be  saved"  (Lake  viii.  12). 


Introdtictory.  7 

great  impoverishment  of  their  value ;  even  as  it  has  more  of 
less  been  characteristic  of  believing  interpreters  to  ignore  too 
much  the  distinctive  features  of  the  Gospels,  and  to  treat 
them  all  as  colourless  chronicles  of  the  life  of  Jesus.  The 
truth  lies  between  the  two  extremes.  The  Gospels  have 
their  distinctive  features,  and  yet  they  have  much  in  common: 
they  have  all  the  great  essentials  of  Christ's  teaching  in 
common.  Matthew's  Gospel  is  theocratic ;  Luke's  is  Pauline, 
humanistic,  universalistic.  But  the  theocratic  aspect  of  the 
Divine  kingdom  is  not  wanting  in  Luke,  neither  is  the 
universal  aspect  thereof  wanting  in  Matthew.  Bearing  this 
in  mind,  we  shall  not  expect  to  find  only  evangelic  parables 
in  the  third  Gospel,  but  shall  be  prepared  to  meet  with  others 
of  a  different  description  ;  neither  shall  we  be  surprised  if  we 
find  in  Matthew  not  only  parables  didactic  and  prophetic,  but 
also  such  as  speak  to  us  not  of  judgment  but  oi  mercy. 

This  caveat  against  too  rigorous  definition  of  the  different 
Gospels  in  relation  to  the  parables  requires  to  be  repeated  in 
connection  with  the  heads  under  which  we  propose  to  classify 
the  latter.  It  must  not  be  imagined  that  every  parable  so 
decidedly  comes  under  one  head  that  it  could  not  with  pro- 
priety be  ranged  under  any  other.  This  holds  good  probably 
of  most,  but  not  of  all.  Some  parables  are,  if  we  may  so 
express  it,  of  an  amphibious  character,  and  might  be  ranged 
under  either  of  two  categories,  because  partaking  of  the 
nature  of  both.  Such,  for  example,  is  the  parable  of  the 
Great  Supper,  which,  while  full  of  mercy  towards  the  home- 
less, hungry  wanderers  on  the  highway,  presents  an  aspect  of 
stern  judicial  severity  towards  those  who  accepted  not  the 
invitations  sent  to  them  ;  and  might  be  classed  either  as  an 
evangelic  or  as  a  prophetic  parable,  according  as  we  took  for 
its  key-note  the  word  of  mercy,  "  Compel  them  to  come  in," 
or  the  word  of  judgment,  "  None  of  those  men  which  were 
bidden  shall  taste  of  my  supper."  As  another  instance,  we 
may  refer  to  the  parable  of  the  "  Unprofitable  Servants,"  as  it 
is  commonly  called,  or,  as  we  prefer  to  call  it,  the  parable  of 
"  Extra  Service."  If  we  start  in  our  interpretation  from  the 
words  "We  are  unprofitable  servants,"  we  shall  regard  the 
parable  as  intended  to  teach  that  there  is  no  room  for  merit 
in  the  kingdom  of  God,  that  all  is  of  grace, — and  so  relegate 


8  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ. 

it  to  the  evangelic  category.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  regard 
it  as  the  purpose  of  the  parable  to  impress  on  the  servants  of 
the  kingdom  the  exacting  nature  of  the  service  to  which  they 
are  called,  and  that  no  man  is  fit  for  that  service  who  is  dis- 
posed to  murmur,  or  who  ever  thinks  he  has  done  enough, 
then  we  may  not  improperly  range  the  parable  under  the 
first  of  the  three  categories,  and  treat  it  as  one  setting  forth 
one  of  the  properties  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

After  these  explanations  we  now  propose  the  following 
distribution  of  the  parables,  to  be  justified  by  the  exposition. 

I.  Theoretic  or  Didactic  Parables. — Under  this  head 
we  include  the  group  of  seven  parables  in  Matt.  xiii. :  The 
Sower,  the  Tares  and  the  Drag-net,  the  Hid  Treasure  and  the 
Precious  Pearl,  the  Mustard  Seed  and  the  Leaven,  with  the 
parable  in  Mark  iv.  26 — 29,  the  Blade,  the  Ear,  and  the  Full 
Corn — in  all  forming  a  group  of  eight  relating  to  the  general 
nature  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  And  besides  these,  the 
parables  of  the  Selfish  Neighbour  and  the  Unjust  Judge 
relating  to  the  delays  of  Providence  in  fulfilling  spiritual 
desires,  or  to  perseverance  in  prayer  (Luke  xi.  5,  xviii.  1); 
the  parable  of  Extra  Service  (Luke  xvii.  7)  ;  and  finally 
the  three  parables  which  relate  to  the  subject  of  work  and 
wages  in  the  kingdom:  viz.  the  Hours  of  Labour  (Matt. 
xx.  1),  the  Talents  (Matt.  xxv.  14),  and  the  Pounds  (Luke 
xix.  12).     In  all,  fourteen. 

II.  Evangelic  Parables.— To  this  class  belong  the  four 
parables  in  Luke's  Gospel  which  together  constitute  Christ's 
apology  for  loving  the  sinful :  the  Two  Debtors  (chap.  vii.  40), 
the  Lost  Sheep,  the  Lost  Coin,  and  the  Lost  Son  (chap,  xv.) ; 
the  Children  of  the  Bride-Chamber  (Matt.  ix.  14 — 17  et 
parall),  being  an  apology  for  the  joy  of  the  children  of  the 
kingdom.  Under  the  same  category  fall  the  Lowest  Seats 
at  Feasts  (Luke  xiv.  7— 11),  and  the  Pharisee  and  the 
Publican  (Luke  xviii.  9—14),  teaching  that  the  kingdom  oi 
God  is  for  the  humble;  the  Great  Supper  (Luke  xiv.  16), 
teaching  that  the  kingdom  is  for  the  hungry;  the  Good 
Samaritan  (Luke  x.  30) ;  the  Unrighteous  Steward  (Luke 
xvi.  1) ;  the  Rich  Man  and  Lazarus  (Luke  xvi.  19),  and  the 
Unmerciful  Servant,  the  two  last  together  teaching  which  are 
the  unpardonable  sins.     In  all,  twelve. 


Introductory.  9 

III.  Prophetic  or  Judicial  Parables.  —  This  class 
includes  the  following:  The  Children  in  the  Market-Place 
(Matt.  xi.  16),  containing  Christ's  moral  estimate  of  the 
generation  amidst  which  He  lived ;  the  Barren  Fig-tree 
(Luke  xiii.  6),  the  two  Sons  and  the  Wicked  Husbandmen 
(Matt.  xxi.  28 — 44),  and  the  Marriage  of  the  King's  Son 
(Matt.  xxii.  1),  exhibiting  more  or  less  clearly  the  action  of 
Divine  judgment  upon  the  nation  of  Israel ;  the  Unfaithful 
Servant  (Matt.  xxiv.  45),  and  the  Ten  Virgins  (Matt.  xxv.  1/. 
exhibiting  similar  judicial  action  within  the  kingdom  of  God. 
In  all,  seven. 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  foregoing  groups  do  not 
include  all  the  parabolic  utterances  of  our  Lord  recorded  in 
the  Gospels.  To  those  omitted  belong  the  parabolic  conclu- 
sion to  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  consisting  of  the  metaphors 
of  the  wise  and  foolish  builders,  the  similitudes  of  the  incon- 
siderate builder  of  a  tower,  and  the  king  who  would  wage  war 
(Luke  xiv.  28 — 35),  and  the  Rich  Fool  (Luke  xii.  16),  which 
appears  in  most  treatises  as  one  of  the  regular  parables. 
These  and  the  like  are  excluded,  not  chiefly  because  they 
cannot  easily  be  brought  within  our  scheme  of  distribution, 
but  more  especially  because  they  are  of  no  independent 
didactic  importance.  The  parables  we  propose  to  consider 
have  all  this  in  common,  that  they  embody  truths  deep, 
unfamiliar  or  unwelcome — "  mysteries  of  the  kingdom."  Such 
a  parable  as  that  of  the  Rich  Fool,  on  the  other  hand,  con- 
veys no  new  or  abstruse  lesson,  but  simply  teaches  in  concrete 
lively  form  a  moral  commonplace.  Parabolic  utterances  of 
that  description  were  not  distinctive  of  Christ  as  a  Teacher : 
they  were  common  to  Him  with  the  Jewish  Rabbis.  He 
spake  these  merely  as  a  Jewish  moralist ;  but  the  parables 
now  to  be  studied  were  uttered  by  Him  as  the  Herald  0/ 
the  kingdom  of  heaven. 


BOOK   I. 

THEORETIC    PARABLES" 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE  SOWER, 

Oft,   THE  WORD   OF  THE   KINGDOM   TO    BE   DIVERSELY   RECEIVED 
ACCORDING   TO   THE    MORAL   CONDITION    OF   HEARERS. 

SrTTING  in  a  boat  on  the  Sea  of  Galilee  near  the  shore,  on 
which  a  great  multitude  was  assembled  to  hear  Him,  Jesus 
said1: — 

Behold 7  the  sower*  went  forth  to  sow.  And  as  he  sowed,  some  seeds 
fell  by  the  wayside,  and  the  fowls  came  and  devoured  them.  And 
other  seeds  fell  upon  the  rocky  places, %  where  they  had  not  much  earthy 
and  forthwith  they  sprang  up,  because  they  had  no  deepness  of  earth; 
and  when  the  sun  was  up  they  were  scorched,  and  because  they  had 
not  root  they  withered  away.  And  other  fell  upon  the  thorns*  and 
the  thorns  sprang  up  and  choked  them.  And  other  fell  upon  the  gooa 
ground,  and  brought  forth  fruit,  some6  an  hundredfold,  some6  sixty- 
fold,  and  some6  thirtyfold.  Who  hath  ears,  let  him  hear. — Matt. 
xiii.  3 — 9. 

Christ's  hearers  would  have  no  difficulty  in  understanding 
the  letter  of  this  parable.  At  their  side,  as  modern  travellers 
who  have  been  on   the  spot   tell   us,6  they  might  see  an 


1  We  give  the  parable  and  its  interpretation  as  contained  in  Matthew  ; 
all  poims  of  importance  in  the  other  Gospels  will  be  noticed  as  we 
proceed. 

*  6  mrapuv — the  man  whose  function  it  was  to  sow,  or  the  sower  of  my 
parable. 

8  liri  rd  TtrpwSt) — not  soil  mixed  with  loose  stones  (which  might  be 
good),  but  soil  resting  on  a  rocky  substratum  a  little  below  the  surface. 

*  Upon  a  soil  with  thorn  or  thistle  seed  in  it,  which  afterwards  sprang  up 

•  8  ftlv,  8  Si,  8  Si—  in  this  case,  in  that,  and  in  a  third  case. 

•  Vide  Stanley,  '  Sinai  and  Palestine,'  p.  425,  in  a  chapter  on  the  local 
connections  and  allusions  of  Christ's  teaching. 


14  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  i. 

agricultural  scene  which  would  enable  them  to  comprehend 
all  the  details  of  the  picture  at  a  glance.  They  would  know 
perfectly  what  was  literally  intended  by  the  four  kinds  of 
ground  distinguished  in  the  parable :  that  the  way-side  signi- 
fied the  hard-trodden  path  running  through  the  cornfield ; 
that  the  rocky  places  signified  that  part  of  the  field  where  the 
soil  was  shallow,  and  the  rocky  stratum  below  came  near  the 
surface ;  that  the  thorns  denoted,  not  thorn  bushes  actually 
growing  in  the  field  at  the  time  of  sowing,  but  soil  with  thora 
seeds  latent  in  it,  which  in  due  course  sprang  up,  disputing 
possession  with  the  grain ;  and  that  the  good  ground  meant 
that  portion  of  the  field  which  was  free  from  all  the  faults  of 
the  other  parts,  and  was  at  once  soft,  deep,  and  clean.  They 
would  know  also  that  the  fate  of  seed  falling  upon  these 
different  places  respectively  would  be  just  such  as  described  in 
the  parable:  that  the  seed  falling  on  the  hard  path  would 
never  even  so  much  as  germinate,  but  either  be  picked  up  by 
the  birds  or  trodden  under  foot;  that  the  seed  falling  on 
shallow  soil,  with  rock  immediately  beneath,  might  germinate, 
and  even  spring  up  rapidly  for  a  short  while,  but  for  want  of 
sap  and  depth  of  earth  must  inevitably  wither  under  the  heat 
of  the  sun,  and  so  come  to  nothing ;  that  the  seed  which  fell 
on  soil  full  of  thorn  or  thistle  seeds  might  not  only  germinate 
and  spring  up,  but  continue  to  grow  with  vigour  till  it  reached 
the  green  ear — the  fault  of  the  ground  not  being  poverty,  but 
foulness — but  would  never  ripen,  being  choked,  smothered, 
and  shaded  by  the  overgrowing  thorns ;  and  finally,  that  seed 
which  fell  on  good,  generous  soil,  soft,  deep,  and  clean,  could 
not  fail,  under  the  genial  influences  of  fostering  sap  beneath 
and  of  a  bright  sun  above,  to  yield  a  bountiful  harvest,  richly 
rewarding  the  husbandman's  pains. 

But  what  might  the  spiritual  meaning  of  the  parable  be? 
Why  did  Jesus  speak  this  parable  ?  What  did  He  mean  to 
teach  ?  These  questions  His  hearers  were  not  able  to  answer. 
That  the  parable  was  designed  to  teach  something,  that  it 
meant  more  than  met  the  ear,  they  would  of  course  under- 
stand ;  for  common  sense  would  teach  them  ihat  Christ  was 
not  likely  to  describe  a  sowing  scene  for  its  own  sake,  and 
the  closing  words,  "  Who  hath  ears,  let  him  hear,"  was  a  hint 
•*t  a  hidden  meaning  that  could  not  fail  to  be  understood 


ch.  l]         Theoretic  Parables. —  The  Sower,  15 

even  by  the  most  obtuse.  It  is  even  possible  that  the  people 
standing  on  the  shore  had  a  shrewd  suspicion  thsxt  the 
preacher  was  speaking  about  themselves,  and  describing  the 
various  sorts  of  hearers  of  the  word  of  the  kingdom  who  were 
mingled  together  in  that  great  crowd,  and  the  correspondingly 
diverse  issues  of  the  preaching  of  the  word.  But  beyond  that 
point  we  may  be  sure  their  comprehension  did  not  go.  They 
might  have  a  dim  impression  that  the  various  sorts  of  soil 
signified  spiritual  states  ;  but  they  could  not  discriminate  the 
spiritual  soils  on  which  the  word  of  the  kingdom  fell,  as  they 
could  at  once  and  with  ease  apprehend  the  literal  points  of 
the  parable.  How  should  the  multitude  at  large  understand 
what  even  the  disciples,  the  twelve,  and  others  who  had  been 
constantly  in  Christ's  company,  failed  to  understand  ?  That 
even  they  were  puzzled,  the  record  informs  us.  When  they 
were  alone,  we  are  told,  the  disciples  asked  their  Master  what 
might  this  parable  be.1  One  of  the  Evangelists  gives  the 
question  thus  :  "  Why  speakest  Thou  unto  them  in  parables  ? "  ■ 
— meaning,  in  such  a  parable  as  this  of  the  Sower.  The  two 
forms  of  the  question  convey  a  pretty  definite  idea  of  the 
state  of  mind  of  those  who  put  it.  It  was  a  state  intermediate 
between  perfect  knowledge  and  total  ignorance.  They  did 
not  know  clearly  the  meaning  of  the  parable,  else  they  would 
not  have  asked  for  an  interpretation ;  they  were  not  totally 
ignorant  of  its  meaning,  else  they  would  not  have  asked, 
"  Why  speakest  Thou  unto  them  in  parables  ?  "  They  knew 
enough  to  be  surprised  that  their  Master  addressed  such  a 
parable  to  the  eagerly-listening  multitude  —  a  parable  not 
setting  forth  any  truth  concerning  the  kingdom,  like  that  of 
the  Precious  Pearl,  which  teaches  the  incomparable  value  of 
the  kingdom — but  animadverting  on  the  various  classes  of 
hearers.  That,  as  we  believe,  was  the  cause  of  surprise  :  not 
the  general  fact  of  teaching  in  a  new  way  (viz.  in  parables) 
taken  abstractly  and  by  itself,  but  that  fact  taken  in  conjunc- 
tion with  the  peculiar  character  of  the  parable  by  which  the 
new  method  was  inaugurated. 

If  such  was  indeed  the  feeling  in  the  minds  of  the  disciples, 
we  cannot  wonder  at  their  question.  For  even  now  we  who 
understand   the   parable,  as   they  could   not   before  it  wai 

1  Luke  viii.  9,  *  Matt.  xiii.  la, 


1 6  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  i. 

explained  to  them,  are  constrained  to  ask  ourselves  the 
v  "  question,  Why  spake  Jesus  such  a  parable  as  that  of  the 
Sower  to  the  crowd  of  people  assembled  on  the  shore  of  the 
Sea  of  Galilee — a  parable  in  which  the  Speaker  preached  not 
to  the  people,  but  at  them,  or  over  their  heads  ;  not  about 
any  important  truth  of  the  kingdom,fbut  about  the  reception 
truth  was  likely  to  meet  with ;  not  glad  tidings  to  men,  but 
very  sombre,  depressing  tidings  concerning  men  in  their 
relation  to  the  gospel  ?]  One  could  at  once  understand  how 
such  a  parable  as  this  might  at  any  time  have  been  spoken  to 
the  disciples  ;  because  to  them  it  was  given  "  to  know  the 
mysteries  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,"  and  specially  because  it 
was  desirable  that  they,  as  the  future  apostles  of  the  kingdom, 
should  know  what  reception  they  were  to  meet  with,  to  prevent 
disappointment  when  they  learned  by  experience,  as  their 
Master  had  already  learned,  that  the  effect  of  the  word  was 
conditioned  variously  by  the  moral  state  of  the  hearer.  Ante- 
cedently to  experience,  men  of  sanguine  temper,  ardently 
devoted  to  the  kingdom,  might  anticipate  a  very  different 
result,  and  expect  the  intrinsic  excellence  of  the  doctrine  to 
insure  in  all  cases  a  harvest  of  beneficent  effects.  A  warning 
to  the  contrary  was  therefore  by  no  means  superfluous.  But 
was  it  not  wasting  a  precious  opportunity  thus  to  speak 
to  the  common  people  ?  and  if  the  Preacher  must  speak  in 
parabolic  form,  why  not  utter  an  "  evangelic  "  parable,  reserving 
didactic  parables  for  the  twelve,  and  prophetic  parables  for 
unbelieving  hostile  Pharisees  and  Sadducees  ?  We  put  the 
question  strongly,  because  we  wish  to  force  ourselves  and  our 
readers  to  reflect  and  go  in  quest  of  an  answer ;  believing 
that  the  answer,  when  found,  will  lend  greatly  enhanced 
interest  to  the  parable,  and  help  us  to  understand  its  import, 
and  may  even  lead  to  discoveries  as  to  the  design  and  what 
we  may  call  the  psychological  genesis  of  the  whole  parabolic 
teaching  of  our  Lord. 

Without  doubt,  then,  to  answer  our  question  at  once,  the 
reason  why  Jesus  spoke  such  a  parable  as  that  of  the  Sower, 
and  such  other  parables  as  these  of  the  Tares  and  the  Net,  in 
the  hearing  of  the  multitude  is  to  be  sought  [in  the  moral 
situation  of  the  hour}),    Travellers  and  interpreters  have  been 

1  Farrar,  in  his  '  Life  of  Christ,'  takes  this  view :  **  The  great  mass  of 


ch.  i.l  Theoretic  Parables. — The  Sower.  ij 

at  gre^t  pains  to  explain  the  physical  situation — the  natural 
surroundings  of  the  Speaker  that  day  when  He  began  to  open 
His  mouth  in  parables.     And  this  is  well,  though  it  is  possible 
to  have  too  much  of  it,  leading  to  a  sentimental  style  of 
treating  the  parables  which  is  rather  tiresome  and  unprofit 
able.     The  moral  situation  is  undoubtedly  the  principal  thing 
to  be  determined  ;  for  we  cannot  believe  that  Christ  was  led 
to  speak   as   He  did  by  merely  picturesque  influences,  any 
more  than  we  can  believe  that  He  then  and  there  opened  His 
mouth  in  parables  from  a  merely  intellectual  liking  for  that 
symbolic  manner  of  expressing  thought.     The  jnotive  must  " 
have  come  from  the  spiritual  composition  and  condition  of  ► 
thecrowdP~Jel3us~must  have  TTfted  up  the  eye  of  His  mind, 
and  seen,  not  a  literal  field,  with  the  characteristics  described 
in  course  of  being  sown  with  grain,  but  a  spiritual  field  with 
analogous  characteristics,  which  had  been  sown  with  the  seeds 
of  Divine  truth  by  Himself, — even  that  very  crowd  which  was 
assembled  before  Him.   IBut  have  we  any  evidence  that  the  * 
spiritual  condition  of  that  crowd  was  such  as  this  hypothesis 
requires })  We  have.     First  there  is  the  statement  made  by  » 
Jesus  Himself,  in  reply  to  the  question  of  His  disciples,  which 
presents  a  very  gloomy  picture  of  the  spiritual  condition  of 
the  people :  "  For  this  people's  heart  is  waxed  gross,"  etc.1 
When  Jesus  said  that,  He  did  not  merely  quote  a  prophetic 
commonplace  in  a  haphazard,  pointless  way,  without  meaning 
to  imply  that  it  had   any  very  definite  applicability  to  the 
multitude  before  Him.     He  believed,  and  He  said,  that  in  the 
case  of  that  very  multitude  the  spiritual  state  described  by  the 
prophet  Isaiah  was  very  exactly  fulfilled  or  realized.2     Then,,*' 
seajndly,  there  is  the  great  historical  melancholy  fact  of  the 
Capernaum  crisis  recorded  in  John  vi.,  in  which  the  Galilean 
revival  came  to  a  deplorable  end  :  "  From  that  time  many  of 
His  disciples  went  back  and  walked  no  more  with  Him."  * 

hearers,"  he  remarks,  "  must  now  have  been  aware  of  the  general  features 
in  the  new  gospel  which  Jesus  preached.  Some  self-examination,  some 
earnest,  careful  thought  of  their  own,  was  now  requisite,  if  they  were  indeed 
sincere  in  their  desire  to  profit  by  His  words"  (vol.  i.  p.  322). 

1  Matt  xiii.  15. 
Matt.  xiii.  14.     Kat  dvawXripovTai.     The  dvd  is  intensive, 

•  John  vi.  66. 

G 


1 8  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  i 

v  And,  finally,  the  minute  particular?  of  information  supplied 
by  the  ^Evangelists  as  to  the  circumstances  amid  which  Jesus 
spake  our  parable,  show  that  the  Galilean  enthusiasm  is  at 
its  height,  and  therefore  that  the  crisis,  the  time  of  reaction, 
must  be  near.  Matthew  tells  us  that  so  great  were  the 
multitudes  who  gathered  together  unto  J~sus  that  He  was 
obliged  to  go  into  a  ship  in  order  to  escape  pressure,  and  have 
a  position  from  which  He  could  be  seen  and  heard  of  all.1 
Mark  says  :  "And  He  be^an  again  to  teach  by  the  seaside," — 
implying  eagerness  in  the  people  thereabouts  to  hear  ;  and  he 
characterises  the  audiences  not  merely  as  great,  but  as  very 
great.2  Luke  informs  us  that  the  congregation  assembled  was 
composed  of  people  coming  "  out  of  every  city,"  s — that  is,  from 
all  the  towns  and  villages  by  the  shores  of  the  lake. 
v  V  The  crisis,  then,  is  approaching,  and  it  is  in  view  of  that 
crisis  Jesus  speaks  the  parable  of  the  Sower.  He  sees  it 
coming,  and  is  sad,  and  He  speaks  as  He  feels.  The  presents 
enthusiasm,  because  He  knows  how  it  is  likely  to  end,  gives 
Him  no  pleasure, — it  rather  causes  Him  trouble.  He  wishes 
to  be  rid  of  it.  We  might  almost  say  He  speaks  the  parable 
for  that  end ;  using  it,  as  He  used  the  mystic  sermon  on  the 
Bread  of  Life,  in  the  synagogue  at  Capernaum,  as  a  fan  to 
separate  wheat  from  chaff.4  At  the  least,  we  may  say  He 
speaks  the  parable  to  foreshadov/  the  end.  The  parable  is  a 
rjrelude  to  the  sermon,  uttered  to  satisfy  the  Speaker's  sense 
of  truth  ;jto_throw  hearers  jjack_on  themselves^ in  self-examin- 
ation ;  _to  warn  disciples  against  being  imposed  on  by  Tair 
appearances,  and  cherishing  romantic  expectations  doomed 
to^  bitter  disappointment  ;~and  to  insure  in  all  ages,  for  an 
' enthusiasmonmmanity^not  blind  to  the  weakness  of  human 
nature,  a  respect  which  it  is  impossible  to  accord  to  a  shallow 
philantRlropy^wilHout  n^oraljmiight.6 

1  Matt.  xiii.  2.  2  oXXoc  7rX«<rroc  (ch.  iv.  \\ 

Ch.  Viu.  4-     t&v  Kara  iroXtv  Imiroptvofiivwv  7rpoc  avrov. 

*  For  our  view  of  the  effect  of  that  sermon  see  ■  The  Training  of  the 
Twelve,'  cap.  ix.,  section  4. 

•  Godet  says  :  "  The  end  of  Jesus  is  first  to  show  that  He  Is  under  no 
Illusion  in  view  of  that  multitude  in  appearance  so  attentive ;  next  to  put 
His  disciples  on  their  guard  against  the  hopes  which  the  present  enthusiasm 
might  inspire  ;  lastly,  and  above  all,  to  fortify  His  hearers  against  the 
perils  to  which  their  present  religious  impressions  were  exposed  "  ('  Commu 


vb 


ch.  1.1         Theoretic  Parables. —  The  Sower.  19 

So  we  account  for  the  utterance  of  the  parable  ot  the 
Sower,  and  of  at  least  some  others  of  the  group  contained 
in  Matt,  xiii.1  But  can  the  same  or  a  similar  account  be 
given  of  the  parabolic  teaching  of  Christ  in  general  ?  A 
remark  of  Jesus  to  His  disciples  reported  by  Mark  seems  to 
imply  that  it  can :  "  Know  ye  not  this  parable  ?  and  how 
then  will  ye  know  all  the  parables  ?  "  2  The  remark,  taken  by 
,'tself,  might  be  understood  to  mean  that  men  who  could  not 
comprehend  so  simple  a  parable  would  be  still  more  at  a  loss 
with  other  parables,  spoken  or  to  be  spoken,  more  difficult  of 
comprehension.  But,  taken  along  with  the  reference  going  >■ 
before  to  the  words  of  Isaiah,  it  seems  rather  to  signify  that  *- 
the  parables  in  general  are  to  be  regarded  as  associated  more 
or  less  with  the  mood  of  mind  Which  these  prophetic  words 
express.  And  close  observation  of  the  parables  recorded 
in  the  Gospels  shows  that  this  is  really  to  a  large  extent  the 
case.  It  will  be  found,  on  inspection,  that  very  many  of  the 
parables  are  of  an  apologetic  or  defensive  character.  The 
position  of  Christ  when  He  uttered  them  was  that  of  one 
found  fault  with,  misunderstood,  or  despairing  of  being  under- 
stood ;  conscious  of  isolation,  and  saddened  by  the  lack  of 
intelligence,  sympathy,  and  faith  on  the  part  of  those  among 
whom  He  exercised  His  ministry.  Such  seem  to  have  been 
the  psychological  conditions  under  which  the  mind  of  the 
Saviour  betook  itself  to  parable-making.  The  question  why 
He  spoke  in  parables  as  a  public  teacher  is  a  wide  one,  to 
which  a  full  answer  is  not  given  in  the  Gospels.  Doubtless 
temperament  and  the  genius  of  race  had  something  to  do 
with  it ;  and  a  certain  class  of  writers  would  emphasise  such 

sur  PEvangile  de  St.  Luc,'  i.  396).  The  last  remark  in  the  sentence  in 
the  text  to  which  this  note  refers  may  be  illustrated  by  an  anecdote  told 
of  Frederick  the  Great.  When  one  of  the  apostles  of  eighteenth-century 
Illuminism  spoke  to  him  with  enthusiasm  of  the  results  to  be  expected 
from  an  education  based  on  the  assumption  of  the  goodness  of  human 
nature,  his  reply  was,  "  You  don't  know  the  race."  Christ  did  know  the 
race,  and  vet  loved  man  with  an  ardour  and  steadfastness  to  which  no 
philanthropy,  deistic  or  other,  can  be  compared. —  Vide  Kahnis"  History 
of  German  Protestantism,'  p.  49. 

1  The  question  whether  all  the  parables  in  Matt.  xiii.  were  spoken  at 
one  time  will  be  noticed  in  a  future  chapter. 

*  Mark  iv.  13. 

CI 


20  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  l 

causes.  But  while  they  may  be  admitted  to  have  been  joint 
\  causes,  we  do  not  believe  they  were  sole  causes.  There  is 
not  only  a  parabolic  temperament  and  a  parabolic  genius  that 
delights  to  wrap  thoughts  up  in  symbolic  envelopes  ;  but 
there  is,  moreover,  a  parabolic  mood,  which  leads  a  man  now, 
rather  than  then,  to  present  his  thoughts  in  this  form.  It 
is  the  mood  of  one  whose  heart  is  chilled  and  whose  spirit  is 
saddened  by  a  sense  of  loneliness,  and  who,  retiring  within 
himself,  by  a  process  of  reflection  frames  for  his  thoughts  forms 
which  half  conceal,  half  reveal  them, — reveal  them  more 
perfectly  to  those  who  understand,  hide  them  from  those  who 
do  not :  forms  beautiful,  but  also  melancholy,  as  the  hues 
of  the  forest  in  late  autumn.  If  this  view  be  correct,  we 
should  expect  that  speaking  in  parables  would  not  form  a 
feature  of  the  initial  stage  of  Christ's  ministry.  And  such, 
t  accordingly,  was  the  fact,  v  Jesus  opened  His  mouth  first,  not 
in  parables,  but  in  plain  speeches!;  or  if  He  used  parables 
previously,  it  was  only  such  as  were  common  among  Jewish 
teachers :  figures  meant  to  enliven  moral  commonplaces,  like 
that  of  the  wise  and  foolish  builders  at  the  close  of  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount.  He  uttered  beatitudes  before  He  uttered 
similitudes,  and  He  uttered  similitudes  because  the  beatitudes 
had  not  been  understood  or  appreciated.1  \  In  His  own  words, 
as  reported  by  the  first  Evangelist,  Jesus  began  to  speak  in 
parables  because  His  hearers,  seeing,  saw  not,  and  hearing, 
heard  not,  neither  did  they  understand.!  They  had  seen  His 
miracles,  and  had  been  led  by  them  to  form  false  conceptions 
of  His  mission  ;  they  had  heard  His  teaching  on  the  mount 
and  elsewhere,  and  had  formed  erroneous  ideas  of  the  king- 
dom ;  and  therefore  now  He  wraps  His  thoughts  in  forms  by 
which  those  who  do  see  shall  be  enabled  to  see  more  clearly, 
and  to  him  who  hath  light  shall  come  a  still  higher  measure 
of  illumination,  and  those,  on  the  other  hand,  who  see  not 
shall  be  made  still  more  blind,2  simply  mystified  and  perplexed 
as  to  what  the  strange  Speaker  might  mean. 

Such,  doubtless,  were   the   results   in   many  instances  of 

1  Ebrard  maintains  that  the  parables  in  Matt.  xiii.  were  spoken  before 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount ;  but  this  view  has  met  with  little  or  no 
approval.     See  his  *  Gospel  History.' 

■  Matt.  xiii.  12  ;  Mark  iv.  25, 


ch.  i."]  Theoretic  Parables. — The  Sower.  21 

Christ's  parabolic  teaching :  some  who  so  far  already  under- 
stood  Him  were  led  into  a  clearer  comprehension  of  His 
mind ;  others  who  understood  Him  not  were  conducted  into 
deeper  darkness.  Take,  e.g.,  the  parables  which  contain  the 
apology  for  loving  sinners.  One  who  understood  the  motive 
of  Jesus  in  frequenting  the  company  of  sinners  would  get  a 
most  instructive  glimpse  into  the  heart  of  the  Son  of  Man  on 
hearing  those  charming,  pathetic  parables  of  the  Lost  Sheep 
the  Lost  Coin,  and  the  Lost  Son.  But  what  effect  would 
these  beautiful  poetic  parables  have  on  the  mind  of  unsympa- 
thetic, hostile  Pharisees  ?  Not  to  make  them  comprehend  at 
last  the  true  spirit  of  a  much  misunderstood  and  calumniated 
man,  but  to  harden  them  into  more  intense  antipathy, — the 
very  beauty  and  poetry  and  pathos  of  the  sayings  making 
them  hate  more  bitterly  one  with  whom  they  were  determined 
not  to  be  pleased.  Such  were  the  results  in  that  case,  and 
doubtless  in  many  others.  But  were  these  results — was  the 
latter  result,  that  is  to  say — intended?  Did  Jesus  Christ,  the 
Saviour  of  men,  speak  parables  that  blind  men  might  be 
made  blinder,  and  deaf  men  deafer,  and  hard  hearts  harder  ? 
According  to  the  report  of  what  He  said  to  the  disciples  in 
answer  to  their  question  "  Why  speakest  Thou  in  parables  ?  " 
given  by  two  of  the  Evangelists,  we  may  seem  forced  to  the 
conclusion  that  He  did.  For  while  Matthew  makes  Him  say, 
M  Therefore  speak  I  to  them  in  parables,  because  they  seeing, 
see  not"1 — suggesting  the  thought  that  the  parabolic  mode  of 
instruction  was  adopted  that  men  who  saw  not  might  see  at 
least  a  little,  since  they  had  failed  to  see  on  any  other  method, 
Mark  and  Luke  ascribe  to  Him  the  sentiment,  "  To  others  (I 
speak)  in  parables,  in  order  that  seeing,  they  might  not  see, 
and  hearing,  they  might  not  understand."2  Some  critics, 
deeming  the  two  accounts  irreconcilable,  prefer  Matthew's  as 
the  more  correct,  and  regard  the  aim  ascribed  to  Christ  by 
the  other  two  Evangelists  simply  as  "  the  hypochondriac  con- 
struction put  upon  His  words  in  Gospels  written  in  a  pessi- 
mistic spirit  by  men  despairing  of  the  Jewish  people."8  But 
that  the  two  points  of  view  are  not  mutually  exclusive  may 
be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  even  Mark,  who  puts  the  darkef 

1  Matt.  xiii.  13.  *  Mark  iv.  12;  Luke  viii.  ia 

•  So  Keim,  after  Strauss,  in  '  Jesu  von  Nazara,'  ii.  439. 


22  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  l 

view  most  strongly,  winds  up  his  record  of  Christ's  parabolic 
teaching  by  the  lake-side  with  a  reflection  which  plainly 
implies  that  the  design  of  that  teaching  was  not  to  produce 
blindness,  but,  if  possible,  vision.  "And  with  many  such 
parables  spake  He  the  word  unto  them,  as  they  were  able  to 
hear  it." x  And  we  may  lay  it  down  as  a  fixed  principle  that 
what  is  implied  in  Mark's  reflection  is  the  truth.  The  direct 
primary  aim  of  all  Christ's  teaching  was  to  illuminate  human 
minds  and  to  soften  human  hearts.  Such  was  both  the  aim 
and  the  tendency  of  His  parabolic  teaching  in  particular. 
The  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son,  e.g.,  was  surely  both  fitted 
and  intended  to  enlighten  the  minds  of  even  scribes  and 
Pharisees  as  to  the  motive  of  the  Speaker  in  associating  with 
the  sinful,  and  to  soften  their  hearts  into  a  more  kindly  tone 
of  feeling  towards  Himself!  But,  on  the  other  hand,  that 
very  parable  might  have  just  the  opposite  effects  on  minds 
full  of  prejudice  and  on  hearts  full  of  bitterness,  and  produce 
a  more  complete  misunderstanding  and  a  more  inhuman  and 
pitiless  antipathy.  And  in  uttering  the  parable  Jesus  could 
not  but  be  aware  of  the  possibility  of  such  a  result,  and  yet 
might  utter  it  with  that  possible  result  consciously  in  view. 
Nay,  we  can  conceive  Him  erecting  the  possible  and  undesir- 
able result  into  the  position  of  an  end,  and  saying,  "  I  speak 
such  and  such  parables  in  order  that  they  who  see  not  may 
become  more  utterly  blind."  Only  we  must  be  careful  not  to 
misunderstand  the  temper  in  which  such  words  might  be 
spoken  by  Jesus,  or  by  any  true  servant  of  God.  No  true 
prophet  could  utter  such  words  in  cold  blood  as  the  expres- 
sion of  a  deliberate  purpose.  All  prophets  desire  to  illumine, 
soften,  and  save,  not  to  darken,  harden,  and  destroy ;  and 
without  entering  into  the  mystery  of  Divine  decrees,  we  may 
add,  God  sends  His  prophets  for  no  other  purpose,  whatever 
the  foreseen  effects  of  their  labour  may  be.  But  a  prophet 
like  Isaiah  may  nevertheless  feel  as  if  he  were  sent,  and 
represent  himself  as  sent,  for  the  opposite  purpose.  And 
when  he  does  so  it  is  not  in  the  way  of  expressing  direct  aim 
or  deliberate  intention,  but  in  irony,  and  in  the  bitterness 
of  frustrated,  despairing  love.  Baffled  love  in  bitter  irony 
announces  as  its  aim  the  very  opposite  of  what  it  works  for, 

1  Mark  iv.  33. 


ch.  i.]  Theoretic  Parables. — The  Sower.  23 

and  it  does  so  in  the  hope  of  provoking  its  infatuated  objects 
to  jealousy,  and  so  defeating  its  own  prophecy.  "  I  go,"  says 
Isaiah  in  effect, "  to  prophesy  to  this  people,  that  hearing  they 
may  understand  not,  and  seeing  may  perceive  not,  that  I  may 
make  their  hearts  fat,  and  their  ears  heavy,  and  their  eyes 
dim,  lest  they  see  with  their  eyes  and  hear  with  their  ears  and 
understand  with  their  hearts,  and  convert  and  be  healed  ; " 1 
and  he  goes  forth  to  fulfil  these  strange  ends  by  using  means 
fitted  and  designed  to  produce  just  the  opposite  effects,  warn- 
ing them  of  the  consequences  of  persisting  in  evil  ways,  and 
preaching  unto  them  a  gospel  of  rest  for  the  weary  with  such 
plainness,  emphasis,  and  iteration,  as  to  expose  himself  to  the 
mockery  of  drunkards,  who  said :  "  With  this  prophet  it  is 
1  precept  upon  precept,  precept  upon  precept ;  line  upon  line, 
line  upon  line ;  here  a  little,  there  a  little,' — wearisome  itera- 
tion of  lessons  fit  only  for  children."  *'  In  the  light  of  these 
observations  we  can  understand  in  what  spirit  Jesus  appro- 
priated to  Himself  the  harsh  terms  in  which  the  prophet 
expressed  his  Divine  mission,  and  how  we  are  to  view  His 
parabolic  teachings.  He  served  Himself  heir  to  Isaiah's  com- 
mission in  the  ironic  humour  of  a  love  that  yearned  to  save, 
and  was  faithful  to  its  purpose  even  to  death.  He  spoke 
parables, — one  now,  another  then  ;  here  a  little,  there  a  little, 
— if  by  any  means  He  might  teach  men  the  truth  in  which 
they  might  find  rest  to  their  souls.  The  parables  were  neither 
deliberate  mystifications,  nor  idle  intellectual  conceits,  nor 
mere  literary  products  of  aesthetic  taste :  they  were  the  utter- 
ances of  a  sorrowful  heart.  And  herein  lies  their  chief  charm : 
not  in  the  doctrine  they  teach,  though  that  is  both  interesting 
and  important ;  not  in  their  literary  beauty,  though  that  is 
great ;  but  in  the  sweet  delicate  odour  of  human  pathos  that 
breathes  from  them  as  from  Alpine  wild  flowers.  That  He 
had  to  speak  in  parables  was  one  of  the  burdens  of  the  Son 
of  Man,  to  be  placed  side  by  side  with  the  fact  that  He  had 
not  where  to  lay  His  head. 

1  Isaiah  vi.  9,  ia 

*  Isaiah  xxviii.  9 — 12.  The  words  in  the  original  are  at  once  a  clever 
caricature  of  elementary  teaching  for  children,  and  an  imitation  of  the 
thick,  indistinct  speech  of  an  intoxicated  person  :  Ki  tsav-la-tsav,  tsav-la- 
tsav;  kav-la-kav,  kav-la-kav ;  zeer-sham,  zeer-sham. 


24  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [boor  i. 

We  proceed  now  to  the  interpretation  of  our  parable, 
Christ's  own  interpretation  was  as  follows  : 

Hear  ye  then  the  parable  of  the  sower.  In  the  case  of  every  one  hearing 
the  word  of  the  kingdom  and  not  understanding  it,  cometh  the  wicked 
one  and  catcheth  away  that  which  has  been  sown  in  his  heart.  This 
is  the  one  sown  by  the  wayside?-  But  the  one  sown  upon  the  rocky 
places  is  he  who  heareth  the  word  and  anon  with  joy  receiveth  it.  But 
he  hath  not  root  in  hitnself  but  is  only  temporary ,*  and  when  tribula- 
tion or  persecution  ariseth  because  of  the  word,  straightway  he  is 
made  to  stumble.  And  the  one  sown  among  the  thorns  is  he  who 
heareth  the  word,  and  the  care  of  this  world  and  the  deceitfulness  oj 
riches  choke  the  word,  and  he  be  cometh  unfruitful.  And  the  one  sown 
upon  the  good  ground  is  he  who  heareth  the  word  and  understandeth  it, 
who  accordingly  %  bringeth  forth  fruit  and  produces  now  an  hundred- 
fold,  now  sixty,  now  thirty. — Matt.  xiii.  18 — 23. 

The  parable,  according  to  this  authoritative  interpretation, 
is  meant  to  teach  that  among  those  to  whom  the  word  of  the 
kingdom  is  spoken  are  diverse  classes  of  hearers — four  at 
least  * — corresponding  to  the  four  sorts  of  ground  on  which 
the  seed  falls.  A  record  of  observation  in  the  first  place,  it  is, 
moreover,  a  prophetic  picture  of  the  future  fortunes  of  the 
kingdom.  In  relating  under  a  parabolic  veil  His  own  sad 
experience,  Jesus  forewarned  His  disciples  what  they  had  to 
expect  when  they  were  called  on  as  apostles  to  sow  the 
word  of  the  kingdom.  They  should  find  among  their  hearers 
classes  of  persons  of  which  these  sorts  of  ground  were  the 
types.  Now,  the  matter  of  chief  importance  here  is,  to  form 
just  conceptions  of  these  classes,  that  the  moral  lesson  may 
come  home  to  all.  Many  interpreters  grievously  offend  here. 
Greswell,  e.g.,  makes  the  wayside  hearer  one  characterised  by 
an  absolute  hardness,  whose  state  of  mind  "  may  be  the  most 
deplorable  to  which  human  frailty  is  exposed  and  the  most 
horrible  to  which  human  wickedness  is  liable  to  be  reduced, — 

1  Elliptical  for  "he  who  is  meant  in  the  part  of  the  parable  which  speaks 
of  seed  sown  by  the  way."    Similarly  in  all  the  other  cases. 

*  irpooicaipoQ. 

*  Ml,  expressive  of  self-evident  result.     See  p.  36. 

*  Greswell  labours  to  prove  that  there  can  be  no  more  than  four  classes. 
Such  discussions  are  not  in  the  spirit  of  the  parable,  which  expresses  facts 
that  had  come  under  the  Speaker's  observation,  not  necessary  psycho- 
logical truth. 


ch.  i.]         Theoretic  Parables. —  The  Sower,  15 

the  last  stage  in  a  long  career  of  depravity,  and  the  judicial 
result  of  perseverance  in  obstinate  wickedness  with  impunity 
and  impenitence." x  This  is  surely  to  confound  weakness  and 
wickedness,  and  so  to  render  the  parable  useless  for  the 
purpose  of  warning  to  a  very  common  class  of  hearers.  We 
must  remember,  in  the  quaint  words  of  a  wiser  expositor,  that 
■  the  trodden  path  is  after  all  not  a  rock,"  2  and  generally  give 
heed  to  the  remark  of  a  greater  than  either :  "  In  order  that 
the  admonitions  of  the  parable  may  benefit  us  the  more,  it 
must  be  kept  steadily  in  view  that  no  mention  is  made 
therein  of  despisers  of  the  word,  but  only  of  those  in  whom 
appears  a  certain  measure  of  docility." 3  Doubtless  there 
were  '  wayside '  hearers  in  the  crowd  to  whom  the  parable  was 
addressed  :  yet  all  present  had  come  with  more  or  less  desire 
to  hear  Christ  preach,  and  learn  at  His  lips  the  doctrine  of 
the  kingdom. 

We  shall  best  learn  to  discriminate  accurately  the  different 
classes  of  hearers  by  giving  close  attention  to  the  manner  in 
which  they  are  respectively  characterised  by  our  Lord. 

I.  The  wayside  hearer  hears  the  word,  but  does  not  under- 
stand it, — or,  to  use  a  phrase' which  expresses  at  once  the 
literal  and  the  figurative  trutl*,  does  not  take  it  in.4  Thought- 
lessness, spiritual  stupidity,  arising  not  so  much  from  want  of 
intellectual  capacity  as  from  preoccupation  of  mind,  is  the 
characteristic  of  the  first  class.  Their  mind  is  like  a  footpath 
beaten  hard  by  the  constant  passage  through  it  of  "  the  wishes 
of  the  flesh  and  the  current  thoughts  "  6  concerning  common 
earthly  things.  For  a  type  of  the  class  we  may  take  the  man 
who  interrupted  Christ  while  preaching  on  one  occasion,  and 
said  :  "  Master,  speak  to  my  brother,  that  he  divide  the  inherit- 
ance with  me."  6  He  had  just  heard  Christ  utter  the  words, 
"  And  when  they  bring  you  into  the  synagogues,  and  unto 

1  '  Parables,'  vol.  ii.  37.  •  Stier,  '  Reden  Jesus,'  ii.  83. 

•  Calvin,  '  Comment,  in  Quatuor  Evangelistas,'  in  loc 

•  "Our  language  is  capable  in  this  instance,  like  the  Greek,  of  express- 
ing by  one  phrase  equally  the  moral  and  the  material  failure  :  '  Every 
one  that  hears  the  word  of  the  kingdom  and  does  not  take  it  in  (jt) 
wwiIvtoc).'  "    Arnot,  'The  Parables  of  our  Lord,'  p.  52. 

6  So  Mr.  M.  Arnold  renders  the  Apostle  Paul's  phrase  rk  QiKr\\iara  rife 
rapcoc  KaJ  raiv  SiavotiLv  (Eph.  ii.  3).     Vide  '  Literature  and  Dogma,' p.  202 

•  Luke  xii.  1  \. 


a6  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ.    (_book  l 

magistrates  and  powers,"  *  and  these  suggested  to  him  the  topic 
on  which  his  thoughts  were  habitually  fixed  —  his  dispute 
with  his  brother  about  their  patrimony.  And  so  it  happened 
to  him  according  to  the  parable.  The  truth  he  had  heard 
did  not  get  into  his  mind,  hardened  as  it  was  like  a  beaten 
path  by  the  constant  passage  through  it  of  current  thoughts 
about  money ;  it  was  very  soon  forgotten  altogether,  caught 
away  by  the  god  of  this  world,  who  ruled  over  him  through 
his  covetous  disposition.  It  may  be  regarded  as  certain  that 
there  were  many  such  hearers  in  the  crowd  by  the  lake, — men 
in  whose  minds  the  doctrine  of  the  kingdom  merely  awakened 
hopes  of  worldly  prosperity, — who,  as  Jesus  afterwards  told 
them,  laboured  for  the  meat  that  perisheth,  not  for  the  meat 
that  endureth  unto  everlasting  life.2  Such  were  they  who 
"  received  seed  by  the  wayside." 

2.  He  that  received  seed  into  stony  places ',  on  the  other  hand, 
is  he  that  heareth  the  word  and  anon  with  joy  receiveth  it. 
The  characteristic  of  this  class  is  emotional  excitability,  in- 
considerate impulsiveness.  They  receive  the  word  readily 
with  joy ;  but  without  thought.  The  latter  trait  is  not 
indeed  specified,  but  it  is  clearly  implied  in  the  remark  con- 
cerning the  effect  of  tribulation,  persecution,  or  temptation  on 
this  class  of  hearers.  They  had  not  anticipated  such  experi- 
ences, they  did  not  count  the  cost,  there  was  a  want  of 
deliberation  at  the  commencement  of  their  religious  life,  and 
by  implication  a  want  of  that  mental  constitution  which 
ensures  that  there  shall  be  deliberation  at  all  critical  periods 
af  life.  It  is  this  want  of  deliberation  that  is  the  fault  of  the 
class  now  under  consideration,  not  the  mere  fact  of  their 
receiving  the  word  with  joy.  Joy  by  itself  does  not  define 
the  class  ;  for  joy  is  characteristic  of  deep  as  well  as  of 
shallow  natures.  Absence  of  joy  in  religious  life  is  a  sign, 
not  of  depth,  but  of  dulness.  The  noble,  devoted  heart  that 
attains  to  high  measures  of  faithfulness  has  great  rapturous 
passionate  joy  in  connection  with  its  spiritual  experiences. 
But  the  joy  of  the  good  and  honest  heart  is  a  thoughtful  joy, 
associated  with  and  springing  out  of  the  exercise  of  the  intel- 
lectual and  the  moral  powers  upon  the  truth  believed.  The 
joy  of  the  stony  ground  hearer,  on  the  contrary,  is  a  thought- 

1  Luke  xii.  1 1.  »  John  vi.  97. 


ch.  l]         Theoretic  Parables. —  T/ie  Sower.  ±J 

less  joy  coming  to  him  through  the  effects  of  what  he  hears 
upon  the  imagination  and  the  feelings/  Joy  without  thought 
is  his  definition.  V. 

Of  course  a  religious  experience  of  this  character  cannot 
last :  it  is  doomed  to  prove  abortive.  For  tribulation,  perse- 
cution, temptation  in  some  form,  will  come,  not  to  be  with- 
stood except  by  those  whose  whole  spiritual  being — mind, 
heart,  conscience — is  influenced  by  the  truth ;  and  even  by 
them  only  by  the  most  strenuous  exertion  of  their  moral 
energies.  A  man  who  has  been  touched  only  on  the  surface 
of  his  soul  by  a  religious  movement,  who  has  been  impressed 
on  the  sympathetic  side  of  his  nature  by  a  prevalent  enthu- 
siasm, and  has  yielded  to  the  current  without  understand- 
ing what  it  means,  whither  it  tends,  and  what  it  involves, — 
such  a  man  has  no  chance  of  persevering  under  the  conditions 
of  trial  amidst  which  the  divine  life  has  to  be  lived  in  this 
world.  He  is  doomed  to  be  irpoo-icaipos,  a  temporary  Christian, 
to  be  scandalised  by  tribulation,  to  apostatise  in  the  season  of 
temptation.  For  he  hath  not  root  in  himself,  in  his  moral 
personality,  in  the  faculties  constituting  personality  —  the 
reason,  conscience,  and  will — which  remain  hard,  untouched, 
unpenetrated  by  the  fibres  of  his  faith  ;  his  root  is  in  others, 
in  a  prevalent  popular  enthusiasm  ;  his  religion  is  a  thing  of 
sympathetic  imitation.  He  is  not  only  irpoo-Kcupos  in  the 
sense  of  being  temporary,  but  likewise  in  the  sense  of  being  a 
creation  of  the  time,  a  child  of  the  Zeitgeist}  He  comes  forth 
as  a  professor  of  religion  "  at  the  call  of  a  shallow  enthusiasm, 
and  through  the  epidemic  influence  of  a  popular  cause."* 
And  this  fact  largely  explains  his  temporariness.  When  the 
tide  of  enthusiasm  subsides,  and  he  is  left  to  himself  to  carry 
on  single-handed  the  struggle  with  temptation,  he  has  no 
heart  for  the  work,  and  his  religion  withers  away,  like  the 
corn  growing  on  rocky  places  under  the  scorching  heat  of  the 
summer  sun. 

If  a  type  of  this  class  is  sought  for  in  the  Gospel  records,  it 
may  be  found  in  the  man  who  said  unto  Jesus,  "  Lord,  I  will 
follow  Thee  whithersoever  Thou  goest,"  and  to  whom  Jesus 

1  So  Lange, '  Bibelwerk' ;  and  also  Volkmar,  '  Die  Evangelien,'  p.  284. 
•  Edward  Irving, '  Sermons  on  the  Parable  of  the  Sower.'     Collected 
writings,  vol.  i.  p.  169. 


28  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ.    £bOOK  i 

replied,  "  Foxes  have  holes,  and  birds  of  the  air  have  roosts, 
but  the  Son  of  man  hath  not  where  to  lay  His  head."1  The 
reply  clearly  implies  that  this  would-be  disciple  was  under 
some  sudden  impulse  proposing  to  follow  Christ,  without 
considering  what  the  step  involved.  He  had  received  the 
word  of  the  kingdom  with  joy,  and  came  to  offer  himself  as  a 
disciple  in  a  spirit  of  romantic  enthusiasm,  without  the  smallest 
idea  what  he  was  undertaking,  utterly  unaware  of  the  hard- 
ships of  disciple  life.  But  what  need  to  point  to  the  scribe  as 
if  he  were  a  solitary  instance  of  inconsiderate  profession ! 
Was  not  the  crowd  by  the  lake  to  which  the  Parable  of  the 

/Sower  was  spoken  full  of  such  professors ?  There  was  a 
great  religious  enthusiasm — what  in  these  days  might  be 
called  a  'great  revival' — in  Galilee,  and  there  were  many  in 
that  crowd  who  had  come  under  its  influence.  Infected  by 
the  spirit  of  the  time,  they  followed  Jesus,  by  whose  preaching 
of  the  kingdom  the  movement  had  been  created,  whithersoever 
He  went ;  delighted  to  hear  Him  speak,  feeling  as  if  they 
could  never  hear  enough  of  the  precious  words  which  fell  from 
His  lips.  But.  alas !  their  religion  consisted  largely  in  sym- 
pathy with  their  fellows,  and  in  vague  romantic  dreams 
concerning  the  kingdom  that  was  coming ;  and  so  when  the 
time  of  disenchantment  came,  and  they  learnt  that  their 
dreams  were  not  likely  to  be  realised,  they  "  went  back  and 
walked  no  more  with  Him."2  How  often  has  the  same 
tragedy  been  repeated  in  the  history  of  religious  movements 
of  a  popular  character !  It  is  persons  whose  spiritual  natures 
resemble  the  rocky  ground  who  are  chiefly  influenced  by  such 
movements.  Others  of  deeper  character  and  more  promise 
may  be  touched  in  small  numbers,  but  these  are  sure  to  be 
touched  in  large  numbers.3  And  so  it  comes  to  pass  that  the 
melancholy  history  of  many  hopeful  religious  movements  b 
this :  many  converts,  few  stable  Christians ;  many  blossoms, 
little  fruit  coming  to  maturity. 

1  Luke  lx.  57 ;  cf.  Matt.  viii.  19.  »  John  vi.  66t 

8  "Such  men,"  says  Godet,  "form  in  almost  every  awakening  a  con- 
siderable portion  of  the  new  converts."— '  Comment,  sur  Luc,'  i.  399. 
Deeper  natures  are  less  influenced  by  sympathy,  and  their  religious 
decisions  are  come  to  for  the  most  part  in  solitude  and  after  earnest 
consideration  of  the  subject  on  all  sides. 


;h.  i.J         Theoretic  Parables. —  The  Sower,  29 

3.  He  that  received  seed  among  the  thorns  is  so  described  as 
to  suggest  the  idea  of  a  double-minded  man — the  avrjp  btyvxof 
>f  St.  James.1  This  man  is  neither  stupid,  like  his  brother 
aearer  of  the  first  class,  nor  a  mere  man  of  feeling,  like  those 
of  the  second  class.  He  hears  in  the  emphatic  sense  of  the 
word,  hears  both  with  thought  and  with  feeling,  understanding 
vhat  he  hears  and  realising  its  solemn  importance.  The  soil 
in  his  case  is  neither  hard  on  the  surface  nor  shallow ;  it  is 
.'ood  soil  so  far  as  softness  and  depth  are  concerned.  Its  one 
'ault  (but  it  is  a  very  serious  one)  is  that  it  is  impure :  there 
ire  other  seeds  in  it  besides  those  being  sown  on  it,  and  the 
•esult  will  be  two  crops  struggling  for  the  mastery,  with  the 
inevitable  result  that  the  better  crop  will  have  to  succumb. 
This  man  has  two  minds,  so  to  speak, —  we  might  almost  say 
he  is  two  men.  His  will  is  divided — not  decided  for  good 
and  against  evil,  but  now  on  one  side,  now  on  the  other; 
serving  God  to-day,  serving  mammon  to-morrow ;  very  re- 
ligious, and  also  very  worldly.  Such  he  is  at  the  beginning, 
though  not  very  obviously ;  such  he  will  be  more  manifestly 
in  the  after  course  of  his  religious  career ;  such  he  will  be  to 
the  end.  To  the  end,  we  say  ;  for  it  is  not  this  man's  nature 
to  begin  with  enthusiasm  and  by  and  by  to  leave  off.  He  is 
too  grave,  too  serious,  too  strong-natured  a  man,  to  be  guilty 
of  such  levity.  What  he  begins  he  will  go  through  with.  He 
will  not  apostatise,  as  a  rule  (for  there  may  be  exceptions) ; 
he  will  keep  up  a  profession  of  religion  till  he  dies.  His  leaf 
will  not  wither, — it  will  continue  growing  till  it  reach  the  ear ; 
but  the  ear  will  be  green  when  it  should  be  ripe.  Only  in  this 
sense  is  it  said  of  him  that  "he  becometh  unfruitful."2  He 
bringeth  forth  fruit,  but  he  bringeth  "  no  fruit  to  perfection."8 
He  never  attains  to  ripeness  in  his  personal  character.  Any 
one  can  see  that  he  is  a  misthriven  Christian,  a  man  not 
victorious  over  the  world,  but  defeated  by  the  world  in  one 
form  or  another, — by  carking  care,  by  the  vanity  and  pride  of 
wealth,  by  some  form  of  selfish  or  sensual  indulgence,  such  as 

1  James  i.  8.  Double-mindedness  in  this  text  is  not  to  be  confounded 
with  hypocrisy. 

8  Matt.  xiii.  22.     Mark  iv.  19. 

•  Luke  viii.  14.  Kal  ov  ri\ta<popovatv.  Vide  Robertson  of  Brighton  on 
this  point  :  '  Sermons,'  first  series,  on  the  Parable  of  the  Sower.  The 
whole  sermon  is  instructive. 


30  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  i. 

inordinate  affection  for  things  lawful,  sloth,  or  excessive  use  of 
stimulants.1  You  may  hope  for  his  salvation  notwithstanding ; 
nevertheless  you  pronounce  him  a  spiritual  failure.  He  is 
unfruitful  also  in  his  Christian  activity,  unfruitful  in  the  sense 
of  bringing  no  fruit  to  perfection.  He  busies  himself,  probably, 
in  good  works ;  perhaps  takes  a  prominent  part  in  devotional 
meetings,  and  appears  duly  on  philanthropic  and  religious 
platforms.  But  his  influence  is  zero,  or  worse — mischievous ; 
for  honest  men  know  him,  and  it  gives  them  a  disgust  to  see 
such  as  he  figuring  as  promoters  of  any  good  work  or  as 
patrons  of  any  worthy  cause. 

It  may  be  asked,  Who  has  a  chance  of  bringing  forth  fruit 
unto  perfection,  for  what  character  is  free  from  thorns  ?  * 
But  the  question  is  not,  who  is  free  from  evil  desires,  or  from 
temptation  to  inordinate  affection?  but  what  attitude  you 
assume  towards  these.  There  are  roots  of  bitterness  in  every 
man,  which,  if  allowed  to  grow  up,  will  trouble  and  defile 
him.  But  the  attitude  of  the  double-minded  man  towards 
these  roots  is  very  different  from  that  of  the  single-minded 
man.  The  former  never  makes  up  his  mind  to  be  resolutely 
against  evil,  and  to  bring  to  bear  all  his  moral  energy  to  put 
it  down ;  the  latter,  on  the  contrary,  does  make  up  his  mind 
to  this,  and  abides  habitually  of  this  mind.  The  single- 
minded  man  adopts  as  his  principle  the  motto,  "  Seek  ye  first 
the  kingdom  of  God,  and  food  and  raiment  shall  be  added 
unto  you ;"  and  in  adopting  and  acting  on  this  principle  he 
becomes  a  perfect  man,  and  brings  forth  fruit  unto  perfection. 
For  the  perfect  man  in  Scripture  does  not  mean  the  faultless 
man,  but  the  man  of  single  mind,  who  loves  God  above  all 
else ;  and  the  fruit  of  such  a  man's  life,  though  not  absolutely 
corresponding  to  the  ideal,  will  be  acknowledged  by  all 
competent  judges  to  be  good,  his  character  noble,  his  work 
such  as  shall  stand. 

Of  the  thorny  ground  hearer,  the  man  of  divided  mind  and 

1  All  these  forms  of  worldliness  are  referred  to  in  the  records :  Matthew 
specifies  the  care  of  the  world  {fikpifiva  tov  a/wvoc)  and  the  deceit  of  riches 
(jf  airaTxi  tov  ttXovtov)  ;  Mark  to  these  adds  the  desires  concerning  other 
things  (a!  vtol  ra  Xonrd  imOvpiat).  Luke  also  gives  these  categories  :  cares, 
riches,  and  pleasures  of  life  {birb  mpifiviuv  tax  tcXovtov  icai  ijJovwv  tov  0iov\ 

*  Lisco  starts  this  difficulty:  vide  'The  Parables  of  Jesus,'  p.  61. 


ch.  i.]         Theoretic  Parables. — The  Sower.  31 

double  heart,  we  have  an  example  in  him  who  came  to  Jesus 
and  said,  "  Lord,  I  will  follow  Thee  ;  but  first  let  me  go  bid 
them  farewell  which  are  at  home  at  my  house."  Apparently 
a  most  reasonable  request ;  but  Jesus  discerned  in  it  the  sign 
of  a  divided  heart,  and  therefore  replied  :  "  No  man  having 
put  his  hand  to  the  plough,  and  looking  back,  is  fit  for  the 
kingdom  of  God." l  The  example  is  all  the  more  instructive 
that  the  man's  temptation  arose,  not  from  lust  after  forbidden 
pleasure,  but  from  inordinate  affection  for  things  lawful.  How 
natural,  how  excusable  that  hankering  after  home  and  house- 
hold 1  Yet  just  such  hankerings,  and  nothing  worse,  are  in 
many  instances  the  thorns  which,  springing  up,  choke  the 
word  and  render  it  unfruitful.  How  many  men  are  wasting 
their  lives  at  home,  who  might  go  forth  to  a  life  of  abundant 
fruitfulness  in  mission  fields,  were  it  not  for  an  attachment 
like  that  of  John  Mark 2  for  fathers  or  mothers,  or  native  land  I 
"  4.  He  that  received  seed  into  the  good  ground  is  he  tJiat 
heareth  the  word  and  understandeth  it.  The  description 
is  intended  to  express  the  idea  of  a  perfect  hearer,  and 
for  that  purpose  seems  inadequate.  For  the  perfect  hearer 
ought  to  have  all  the  good  characteristics  of  a  hearer  of  the 
previous  class,  and  over  and  above,  that  which  he  lacks — a 
pure  will,  a  single  mind.  Now,  even  the  thorny  ground  hearer 
understands  the  word,  and  is  impressed  by  it,  and  only  comes 
short  by  not  giving  to  that  to  which  the  word  relates,  the 
kingdom  of  God,  its  proper  place  of  supremacy.  It  does  not 
therefore  sufficiently  distinguish  a  hearer  of  the  last  class  to 
say  of  him  that  he  hears  and  understands,  or  even  that  he 
hears  with  understanding  and  feeling.  The  authors  of  the 
Authorized  version  betray  a  certain  consciousness  of  this  fact 
in  their  rendering  of  the  clause  relating  to  the  fruitfulness  of  the 
fourth  class — "  which  also  beareth  fruit " — as  if  the  words  were 
meant  to  express  an  additional  characteristic  of  the  class ; 
while  in  truth  they  express  the  sure,  necessary  result  of  the 

1  Luke  ix.  61,  62. 

•  Acts  xii.  25 ;  xiii.  13  ;  xv.  37 — 39.  John  Mark  was  one  who  looked 
back,  and  therefore  was  deemed  by  Paul  not  fit  for  the  work  of  the  king- 
dom In  which  he  was  engaged.  Mark  appears  afterwards  to  have 
regained  Paul's  confidence — a  fact  which  reminds  us  that  a  thorny  ground 
hearer  is  under  no  fatal  necessity  of  continuing  such. 


32  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  u 

characteristics  already  specified.  We  naturally  turn  to  the 
other  Evangelists,  to  see  whether  the  apparent  defect  is 
supplied  in  their  accounts.  For  the  '  understandeth '  of 
Matthew,  Mark  gives  'receive,'1  and  Luke,  'keep';*  and 
these  are  important  words,  but  neither  do  they  bring  out  fully 
the  characteristic  distinction  of  the  perfect  hearer.  For  the 
thorny  ground  hearer  also  receives  the  truth,  takes  it  into  his 
mind  and  heart ;  and  he  not  only  receives  it,  but  retains  it ; 
his  only  fault  is  that  he  does  not  receive  and  retain  it  alone, 
but  allows  the  cares  of  this  world,  and  the  deceitfulness  of 
riches,  and  the  lusts  of  other  things  to  enter  into  and  abide  in 
his  heart  alongside  of  the  truth.  The  precise  distinction  of 
the  perfect  hearer,  on  the  other  hand,  is  this, — that  he  does 
receive  and  retain  the  word  alone  in  his  mind.  He  is 
characteristically  single-minded  and  whole-hearted  in  religion. 
The  kingdom  of  God  has  the  first  place  in  his  thoughts,  and 
everything  else  only  the  second.  His  motto  is  taken  from  the 
words  of  the  Psalmist :  "  Bless  the  Lord,  O  my  soul,  and  all 
tliat  is  within  me?  He  loves  God,  and  seeks  the  kingdom  of 
God  in  accordance  with  the  high  requirement,  "  with  all  thine 
heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  might." 8  He  is 
wholly  given  up,  devoted,  to  the  kingdom  ;  for  him,  as  for  the 
Preacher,  to  "  fear  God  and  keep  His  commandments  "  is  "  the 
whole  of  man."  *     That  the  perfect  hearer  must  be  a  man  of 

1  Mark  iv.  20:  irapa5tx°vrai.  8  Luke  viii.  15:   Kartxovoiv. 

*  St.  Bernard  has  some  excellent  remarks  on  this  requirement  in  his 
'  Sermons  on  Canticles.'  Discoursing  on  the  duty  of  loving  Christ 
"  dulciter,  prudenter,  f ortiter,"  he  goes  on  to  say :  "  Zelum  tuum  infiammet 
charitas,  informet  scientia,  firmet  constantia.  Sit  fervidus,  sit  circum- 
spectus,  sit  invictus.  Nee  teporem  habeat,  nee  careat  discretione,  nee 
timidus  sit.  Et  vide  ne  forte  tria  ista  tibi  et  in  lege  tradita  fuerint,  dicente 
Deo  :  Dilige  Dominum  Deum  tuum  ex  toto  carde  tuo,  et  ex  tota  anima 
tua,  et  ex  tota  virtute  tua.  Mihi  videtur  amor  quidem  cordis  ad  zelum 
quemdam  pertinere  affectionis,  animae  vero  amor  ad  industriam  seu 
judicium  rationis ;  virtutis  autem  dilectio  ad  animi  posse  referri  constantiam 
vel  vigorem.  Dilige  ergo  Dominum  Deum  tuum  toto  et  pleno  cordis 
affectu  ;  dilige  tota  rationis  vigilantia  et  circumspectione ;  dilige  et  tota 
virtute,  ut  nee  mori  pro  ejus  amore  pertimescas.'' — Sermo  xx.  4. 

*  Ecclesiastes  xii.  13,  literally  translated.  St.  Bernard  says  :  "Propter 
temetipsum,  Deus,  fecisti  omnia,  et  qui  esse  vult  sibi  et  non  tibi,  nihil  esse 
incipit  inter  omnia.  Deum  iimey  et  mandata  ejus  observa  :  hoc  est  omnis 
homo.  Ergo  si  hoc  est  omnis  homo,  absque  hoc  nihil  omnis  homo."— 
Sermo  xx.  1. 


ch.  I.]         Theoretic  Parables. — The  Sower,  33 

this  sort,  we  know  from  the  nature  of  the  case ;  for  nothing 
short  of  this  will  yield  the  result  desired ;  and  we  further 
know  from  the  whole  teaching  of  our  Lord,  which  throughout 
sets  forth  single-minded,  whole-hearted  devotion  to  the 
kingdom  as  the  cardinal  virtue  of  all  genuine  citizens.  The 
only  question  is  whether  we  can  by  fair  exegesis  bring  the 
idea  of  such  a  man  out  of  the  interpretation  of  the  parable 
given  by  Christ,  or  m  hether  we  do  not  rather  bring  the  idea 
with  us  and  put  it  into  His  words.  Now,  we  admit  that,  so 
far  as  the  words  to  which  we  have  as  yet  adverted  are  con- 
cerned, such  an  allegation  might  plausibly  be  made.  The  idea 
of  single-minded  devotion  cannot  be  taken  out  of  the  words 
*  understand,' '  receive,'  '  retain.'  At  most  we  can  only  justify 
ourselves  for  putting  that  idea  into  them  by  the  consideration 
that  they  are  meant  to  discriminate  the  perfect  hearer  from 
the  one  going  before,  and  can  do  so  only  when  they  are  so 
emphasised  as  to  imply  that  nothing  but  the  seed  of  truth  is 
received  and  retained.  But  what  is  lacking  in  these  words  is 
supplied  in  a  phrase  given  by  the  third  Evangelist,  to  which 
we  have  not  yet  adverted.  In  the  case  of  the  perfect  hearer 
the  word  is  received  and  retained  in  a  noble  and  good  heart} 
Here  is  what  we  have  been  in  quest  of — a  perfectly  definite 
and  adequate  characteristic  of  the  class  of  hearers  who  attain 
unto  real  and  abundant  fruitfulness.  It  is  worthy  of  notice 
that  the  remarkable  expression  occurs  in  the  Gospel  of  Luke, 
the  Evangelist  of  the  Gentiles,  to  whom  it  would  be  no  objec- 
tion that  the  phrase  was  one  in  familiar  use  among  the  Greeks 
to  denote  the  beau-ideal  of  manhood, — the  man  in  all  respects 
as  he  ought  to  be.  It  is  not  assuming  too  much  to  suppose 
that  Luke  was  acquainted  with  the  Attic  sense  of  the  phrase, 
and  that  he  attached  to  it,  as  used  by  himself  in  this  place,  a 
meaning  akin  to  the  idea  of  KakonayadLa  as  understood  by  the 
Greeks.  In  any  case  we  are  justified,  even  by  New  Testa- 
ment usage,  in  taking  out  of  the  expression  the  idea  of  a  man 
whose  aim  is  noble  and  who  is  generously  devoted  to  his  aim. 
The  epithet  icaXo's  has  reference  to  aims  or  chief  ends,  and 
describes  one  whose  mind  is  raised  above  moral  vulgarity, 
and  is  bent,  not  on  money-making  and  such  low  pursuits,  but 
on  the  attainment  of  wisdom,  holiness,  righteousness.     The 

*  Luke  viii.  15. 

D 


34  The  Parabolic    Teaching  of  Christ,    [eook.  l 

epithet  ayadds  denotes  generous  self-abandonment  in  the 
prosecution  of  such  lofty  ends — large-heartedness,  magnani- 
mous, overflowing  devotion.  Of  the  use  of  the  former  epithet 
in  the  sense  explained  we  have  an  instance  in  the  eulogium 
pronounced  by  Jesus  on  the  act  of  anointing  performed  by 
Mary  of  Bethany.  "  She  hath  wrought,"  He  said,  "  a  noble 
work  (tpyov  nakov)  upon  me."  *  Mary's  act  had  been  blamed 
as  wasteful,  and  such  it  was  when  tested  by  vulgar  utility. 
Jesus  defended  it  by  calling  it  noble  as  distinct  from  useful  in 
the  obvious  vulgar  sense,  and  holding  it  up  as  worthy  to 
receive  throughout  the  whole  world  an  admiration  to  which 
only  noble  things  are  entitled.  Of  the  use  of  the  latter  epithet 
in  the  sense  explained  we  have  an  instance  which  possesses 
peculiar  weight,  as  occurring  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  We 
refer  to  the  character  given  to  Barnabas  in  connection  with 
the  part  he  took  in  the  new  movement  which  had  commenced 
at  Antioch.  Barnabas  had  been  sent  by  the  Church  at 
Jerusalem  to  see,  and,  if  he  approved,  to  assist  in  the  work ; 
and  it  is  reported  of  him  that  when  he  came  and  had  seen 
the  grace  of  God  he  was  glad,  and  exhorted  them  all  that 
with  purpose  of  heart  they  would  cleave  unto  the  Lord. 
Then  to  explain  his  conduct,  the  author,  Luke,  our  Evangelist, 
adds:  "For  he  was  a  good  man  (avrjp  ayaObs),  and  full  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  and  of  faith." 2  His  goodness  manifestly  con- 
sisted in  a  generous  sympathy,  free  from  all  mean  narrow 
suspicion,  with  the  cause  of  Gentile  evangelisation.  He 
believed  the  work  to  be  of  God,  though  it  was  a  strange> 
startling,  unlooked-for  phenomenon  ;  and  he  entered  into  it 
with  his  whole  heart.  If  we  desire  still  further  light  as  to  the 
idea  attached  by  Luke  to  the  epithet '  good/  we  have  but  to 
recall  to  our  recollection  two  other  facts  recorded  by  him  con- 
cerning Barnabas :  the  sale  of  his  estate  for  the  benefit  of  the 
Church,3  and  his  generous  recognition  of  Paul — first  as  a 
convert,  when  he  was  still  an  object  of  suspicion  and  fear,  and 
then  as  the  fit  man  to  carry  on  the  work  at  Antioch  when  he 
abode  in  his  native  city,  inactive  and  eager  for  an  opportunity 
of  service.4  A  good  man,  in  Luke's  vocabulary,  meant  a  man 
capable  of  self-sacrifice  for  the  kingdom  of  God — a  man  of 

1  Matt.  xxvi.  10  *  Acts  xL  24. 

•  Acts  iv.  37.  *  Acts  ix.  26,  27 ;  xi.  25. 


ch.  i.]  Theoretic  Parables.  —  The  Sower,  35 

large,  expansive  sympathies,  and  magnanimously  trustful  and 
generous  in  his  relations  to  his  brethren — one  who  could 
forget  himself  and  his  personal  interest  to  serve  God,  or  to 
help  a  new  struggling  cause,  or  a  friend  in  tin:,e  of  need. 
And  the  man  who  in  a  noble  and  good  heart  hears  and 
retains  the  word  is  just  such  an  one  as  Barnabas.  He  is  a 
man  devoted  to  the  kingdom  of  God  with  his  whole  heart  and 
soul  and  mind,  who  could  part  with  all  for  its  sake,  who  could 
even  at  Christ's  bidding,  though  with  a  keen  pang,  leave  the 
dead  to  bury  the  dead,  even  were  the  dead  his  own  father.1 

The  demand  that  the  kingdom  be  put  first  could  not  be 
stated  in  stronger  terms  than  it  was  in  the  reply  of  Jesus  to  the 
disciple  who  asked  permission  to  discharge  the  last  office  to 
a  deceased  parent.  And  the  man  who  can  comply  with  the 
hard  requirement  therein  expressed  may  be  taken  as  the  type 
of  the  fruitful  hearer,  as  the  man  who  volunteered  to  become 
a  disciple  may  be  taken  as  the  type  of  the  stony  ground 
hearer,  and  the  man  who  desired  leave  to  go  and  bid  fare- 
well to  his  friends  as  the  type  of  the  thorny  ground  hearer.2 

That  such  a  man  should  be  fruitful  is  not  to  be  wondered  at ; 
any  amount  of  fruitfulness  may  be  expected  of  him — thirty, 
sixty,  even  an  hundred  fold.  The  fruitfulness  of  such  a  hearer 
Jesus  regarded  and  represented  as  a  matter  of  course.  Such  is 
the  force  of  the  words  rendered  so  feebly  in  the  Authorized  ver- 
sion, "which  also  beareth  fruit."  The  words  mean  "who  of  course, 

1  That  ayaOoQ  bears  the  meaning  assigned  to  it  in  the  text  in  the  New 
Testament  appears  from  Luke  xxiii.  50,  where  Joseph  of  Arimathea  is 
called  avrjp  ayaOb;  ical  StKaiog.  The  latter  epithet  is  explained  by  the  clause 
following  :  "  he  had  not  consented  to  their  counsel  and  deed  ; "  the  former 
was  shown  to  belong  to  him  by  his  generous  act  in  burying  Jesus.  A 
similar  distinction  between  these  words  is  taken  in  Rom.  v.  7,  though 
Jowett  denies  it.  The  same  distinction  is  made  in  the  '  Clementine 
Homilies,'  xviii.  1 — 3.  Both  Simon  Magus  and  Peter  agree  that  the  words 
denote  different  attributes,  only  Simon  maintains  they  are  incompatible. 
Peter  defines  ayaOug  thus  :  ty<i>  (fn/ui  ayaOov  ilvat  rov  irapdcrtKov  =  largitor^ 
giver.  Eusebius,  'Theophania,'  Book  iv.  cap.  33,  referring  to  this  parable, 
and  to  the  souls  that  bring  forth  fruit,  describes  the  latter  as  men  whose 
heart  is  pure  and  whose  mind  is  devoted,  which  is  just  our  idea  of  the 
two  epithets  tdkog  and  ayo%g.  The  words  of  Eusebius  aie  :  ol  8i  ivavr'no^ 
Utivoig  itaKtifitvoi,  KaBapc}  ip  v  \  j  (ul  n  poatptau  yvqo'q.  rov  own'/pio* 
virodtZdntvoi  oiropov,  k.  r.  X. 

■  Luke  ix.  59,  60. 

D  2 


36  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  i« 

certain.y,  without  fail,  beareth  fruit."1  The  Greek  particle  hr\ 
conveys  the  idea  that  the  result  is  one  which  hardly  needs  to 
be  specified,  and  which  any  one  might  anticipate.  We  have  a 
similar  use  of  the  word  by  Paul  in  the  well-known  text  "  Ye 
are  not  your  own,  for  ye  are  bought  with  a  price,  therefore  (bri) 
glorify  God  in  your  body."  *  To  glorify  God  the  apostle  con- 
sidered the  self-evident  duty  of  men  who  have  been  redeemed 
by  Christ ;  and  he  was  impatient  at  the  very  thought  of  any 
Christian  needing  to  be  told  what  was  his  duty. 

Such,  then,  are  the  four  classes  of  hearers  pointed  at  in  the 
parable  of  the  Sower:  the  spiritually  stupid,  without  thought 
or  feeling  in  relation  to  the  kingdom,  in  whom  the  seed  of  truth 
does  not  even  germinate  ;  the  inconsiderately  impulsive,  whose 
feelings  are  easily  moved,  in  whom  the  truth  germinates  and 
springs  up,  but  quickly  withers  away ;  those  who  receive  the 
truth  into  both  mind  and  heart,  but  not  as  the  one  supremely 
important  thing  to  which  everything  else  must  be  subordinated, 
in  whom  the  seed  germinates,  springs  up,  and  continues  to 
grow  even  to  the  green  ear,  but  never  ripens  ;  and  lastly,  those 
who  receive  the  doctrine  of  the  kingdom  with  their  whole 
heart,  soul,  and  mind,  in  whom  the  truth  takes  root,  grows,  and 
in  due  season  produces  an  abundant  harvest  of  ripe  fruit. 

Whence  these  differences  between  hearers  ?  and  how  far  is 

1  Matt.  xiii.  23:  Sf  &fi  Kap?ro<popti.  The  rendering  of  the  R.  V.,  "who 
verily"  is  better,  but  not  satisfactory.  Passow  finds  the  key  to  all  the 
meanings  of  ty  in  Sij\oQ,  regarding  the  two  words  as  derived  from  the 
6arne  root.  Hartung  ('Partikel-lehre')  derives  flij  from  rjSti,  whom  Meyer 
and  Morrison  follow,  the  former  rendering  8c  ty  "  and  this  was  the  one 
who,"  the  latter  "who  at  length."  Besides  this  place  in  Matthew  and  thai 
in  1  Cor.  vi.  referred  to  above,  the  particle  occurs  in  three  other  places  in 
the  New  Testament— in  Luke  ii.  15,  Acts  xiii.  2,  Acts  xv.  36.  In  the 
first  of  these  the  A.  V.  and  the  R.  V.  both  render  ty  now.  The  shepherds 
say  one  to  another. "  Let  us  now  go  even  unto  Bethlehem."  In  the  second 
they  both  leave  it  untranslated  ;  in  the  third  the  A.  V.  reads  '  again,'  the 
R.  V.  now.  The  best  rendering  in  all  three  cases,  that  which  brings  out 
the  emotional  colouring,  is  come, — "come,  let  us  go  to  Bethlehem; "  "come, 
separate  for  me  Barnabas  and  Saul ;  •  "come,  let  -us  visit  the  brethren  in 
every  city  where  we  preached."  The  particle  also  occurs  combined  with 
voii  in  Heb.  ii.  16,  when  both  in  A.  V.  and  R.  V.  it  is  rendered  '  verily '  ; 
not  happily,  for  verily  conveys  the  idea  of  a  very  solemn  assertion,  whereas 
what  is  said  is  of  the  nature  of  a  truism  thrown  in  to  relieve  the  argu- 
ment.    The  meaning  is :  "  For,  you  see,  it  is  not  of  angels  he  taketh.  hold." 

*  I  Cor.  vi.  19,  2a 


ch.  i.J         Theoretic  Parables. — The  Sower.  37 

it  possible  that  one  may  pass  from  one  class  of  hearers  to 
another  ?  Such  questions  Christ  does  not  answer.  He 
would  teach  one  thing  at  a  time :  the  fact  of  the  difference 
in  hearers,  and  the  corresponding  difference  in  the  result  of 
hearing.  It  is  no  part  of  an  expositor's  duty  to  discuss 
these  questions,  though  in  omitting  to  do  so  he  is  not  to  be 
regarded  as  denying  their  importance.  Specially  interesting 
is  the  question,  whence  the  noble  and  good  heart, — a  topic 
on  which  some  have  expatiated  at  great  length,  though  in 
some  instances  proceeding  on  a  mistaken  understanding  of 
what  is  signified  thereby.1  There  can  be  little  doubt  what 
answer  the  Evangelist,  to  whom  we  owe  the  preservation  of 
the  striking  phrase,  would  have  given  to  the  question.  We 
may  learn  this  from  the  manner  in  which  he  relates  the 
history  of  Lydia,  who  may  be  associated  with  Barnabas  as 
a  good  sample  of  the  fourth  class  of  hearers.  Luke  describes 
Lydia  as  one  "  whose  heart  the  Lord  opened,  that  she  attended 
unto  the  things  which  were  spoken  of  Paul."2  The  fact 
about  Lydia  was,  not  that  up  till  then  she  had  been  peculiarly 
unsusceptible ;  the  contrary  is  implied  in  the  very  fact  of 
her,  a  Gentile  by  birth,  being  present  at  the  meeting,  wor- 
shipping God  as  a  proselyte.  The  fact  rather  was  that  she 
was  distinguished  by  a  peculiar  openness  and  receptivity  of 
mind.  She  brought  that  openness  with  her  to  the  meeting, — 
it  was  manifest  in  her  very  countenance  while  Paul  spoke, — and 
the  historian  tells  us  where  she  got  it.    It  was  from  the  Lord. 

1  We  refer  specially  to  Edward  Irving,  who,  in  his 'Sermons  on  the 
Parable  of  the  Sower,'  already  alluded  to,  goes  at  great  length  into  the 
question  of  the  preparation  of  the  soil  by  a  slow  secular  process  in  nations 
and  in  individuals  for  the  reception  of  the  truth.  He  takes  the  phrase 
"  good  and  honest  heart "  as  denoting  a  sort  of  natural  goodness  before 
faith,  evading  the  charge  of  Pelagianism  by  maintaining  that  such  good- 
ness is  the  product  of  God's  working.  The  discussion  is  very  interesting, 
and  the  truth  taught, — viz.  that  there  is  a  Providential  preparation  with- 
out which  Christianity  is  not  likely  to  come  to  much,  either  in  individuals 
or  in  nations, — in  its  own  place  very  important.  On  this  subject  there  are 
some  suggestive  remarks  in  Martensen's  '  Dogmatics.'  The  Providential 
preparation  this  author  calls  the  drawing  of  the  Father,  and  his  doctrine 
is  that  it  profits  a  people  little  that  the  gospel  is  preached  to  it,  that  the 
Son  draws  it  to  the  Father,  unless  it  has  come  to  such  a  point  in  Its 
development  that  the  Father  in  turn  can  draw  it  to  the  Son  (p.  347). 

*  Acts  xvi.  14. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  TARES  AND  THE  DRAG-NET  j 

OS,  A   MIXTURE  OF  GOOD   AND   EVIL  TO   BE   IN   THE   KINGDOM 
TILL   THE   END. 

The  question  whether  the  seven  parables  contained  in  the 
thirteenth  chapter  of  Matthew  were  all  spoken  at  one  time 
is  one  on  which  opinion  has  been  much  divided.  If  the 
existence  of  a  connection  more  or  less  intimate  between  these 
parables  could  settle  the  question  there  would  be  no  room 
for  dispute.  For,  while  setting  aside  as  a  mere  exegetical 
extravagance  the  view  of  those  who  find  in  this  group  of 
parables,  in  prophetic  form,  an  epitome  of  the  Church's 
history  from  the  time  of  our  Lord  till  the  end  of  the  world,1 
we  must  admit  the  existence  of  a  connection  between  them 
to  this  extent  at  least,  that  they  exhibit  mutually  comple- 
mentary aspects  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  in  its  general 
nature,  and  in  its  progress  and  fortunes  on  this  earth.  I  The 
first,  second,  and  seventh  of  the  group — the  parables  of  the 
Sower,  the  Tares,  and  the  Net — teach  us  that  the  kingdom 
of  God,  as  a  phenomenon  taking  its  place  in  the  world's 
history,  is  destined  to  be  in  various  respects  and  for  various 
reasons  an  imperfect  and  disappointing  thing,  coming  far 
short  of  the  ideal.^  In  the  first  parable  the  shortcoming  takes 
the  form  of  an  unsatisfactory  abortive  reception  of  the  Word 
of  the  kingdom  by  many  individual  hearers,  due  to  the  moral 
condition  of  the  recipients ;  while  in  the  second  and  the 
seventh  it  takes  the  form  of  a  mixture  of  good  and  evil  not 
in  the  hearts  of  individuals,  but  in  the  society  composed  of 
the  collective  body  of  professed  believers,  some  being  genuine 
1  Bengel,  Greswell,  etc. 


ch.  ii.j  The  Tares  and  the  Drag-Net,  39 

citizens  of  the  holy  commonwealth,  and  others  counterfeit. 
The  third  and  fourth  parables  of  the  series — those  of  the 
Mustard-seed  and  the  Leaven — exhibit  the  history_of  the 
kingdom  jjn_jte_bright  side  as^  spiritual  movement  destined 
to  advance1_bj^_s^a^v_ojiward  course  of  development,  from 
a  small  beginning  to  a  great  ending,  worldwide  in  its  extent, 
and  thoroughgoing  in  its  intensive  pervasive  effect.  The 
remaining  two  parables — those  of  the  Hid  Treasure  and  the 
Precious  Pearl — exhibit  the  kingdom  in  its  own  ideal  nature 
as  a  thing  of  absolute,  incomparable  worth,  the  highest  good, 
worthy  to  be  received,  loved,  and  served  with  the  whole  heart 
as  the  summum  bonum,  whatever  reception  it  may  in  fact  meet 
with  at  the  hands  .  f  men. 

The  fact  of  a  connection  is  thus  apparent,  but  it  does  not 
settle  the  disputed  question  alluded  to.  Two  alternatives  are 
possible.  The  connection  between  the  parables  might  have 
led  Christ  to  speak  them  all  at  one  time,  but  it  may  also 
merely  have  led  Matthew  to  relate  them  all  in  one  place, 
though  not  all  spoken  at  the  same  time ;  in  accordance  with 
his  habit  of  grouping  together  materials  connected  by  affinity 
of  thought.  That  we  are  not  shut  up  to  the  former  of  these 
alternatives,  is  sufficiently  evinced  by  the  fact  that  other 
parables  can  be  pointed  to  which  are  undoubtedly  closely 
connected  in  their  subject-matter,  and  which  nevertheless  we 
have  no  reason  to  regard  as  uttered  together  ;  as  for  example, 
those  relating  to  the  subject  of  work  and  wages  in  the 
kingdom,  the  parables  of  the  Talents,  the  Pounds,  and  the 
Hours.1  These  together  constitute  a  complete  doctrine  on 
the  subject  to  which  they  relate, — and  a  teacher  of  methodic 
habit  would  probably  have  spoken  them  all  at  once ;  but 
Christ  uttered  them  as  occasion  required.  And  that  they  fit 
into  each  other  is  due  to  their  truth,  not  to  their  being  parts 
of  one  lesson  given  in  a  single  didactic  effort. 

While  thus  content  to  leave  the  question  undecided  as 
regards  the  whole  group  of  seven  taken  collectively,  we  are 
strongly  of  opinion  that  at  least  three  of  the  seven  were 
spoken  at  one  time ;  even  on  the  day  when  Jesus  opened  His 
mouth  in  parables  sitting  in  a  boat  on  the  Galilean  Lake. 
The  three  are — the  parable  of  the  Sower  and  the  two  to  be 

1  Matt.  xxv.  14 ;  Luke  xix.  12 ;  Matt.  xx.  i. 


40  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ.    (_book  i. 

considered  in  the  present  chapter.  These  three  are  connected 
not  merely  in  a  general  way,  as  relating  to  the  chequered 
fortunes  of  the  kingdom  in  this  world,  but  specially,  as  all 
illustrating  the  aspect  of  the  kingdom  then  present  to  the 
Saviour's  thoughts, — the  dark,  melancholy  side  of  things; 
and  as  suitable  alike  to  the  moral  and  the  physical  situation : 
to  the  moral,  as  addressed  to  a  multitude  comprising  examples 
of  all  the  various  classes  of  hearers  described  in  the  parable 
of  the  Sower,  and  exhibiting  the  mixture  of  good  and  evil,  of 
genuine  and  counterfeit  discipleship,  typified  by  the  wheat 
and  tares  in  the  same  field,  and  the  good  and  bad  fish  in  one 
net ;  to  the  physical,  as  spoken  amid  scenes  where  agricultural 
and  piscatorial  operations  were  daily  carried  on.1 

Tolerably  sure  as  to  the  historical  connection  of  these  three 
parables,  we  are  still  more  confident  as  to  the  propriety  of 
grouping  together  for  joint  consideration  the  latter  two  of  the 
three — those  of  the  Tares  and  the  Net.  They  are  so  like 
that  on  a  superficial  view  one  might  be  inclined  to  pronounce 
their  didactic  import  identical.  They  do  certainly  teach  the 
same  general  truth,  viz.  that  a  mixture  of  good  and  evil  will 
prevail  in  the  kingdom  of  God  on  this  earth  while  the  world 
lasts ;  and  that  this  mixture,  while  in  itself  to  be  deplored,  is 
nevertheless  a  thing  which  for  wise  reasons  is  to  be  patiently 
borne  with  in  view  of  the  great  final  separation.     This  being 

1  Keim  takes  the  same  view.  He  thinks  that  parables  3  and  4 
(Mustard-seed  and  Leaven)  went  originally  together ;  also  5  and  6 
(Treasure  and  Pearl);  likewise  1  and  2;  perhaps  also  7  (Sower,  Tares, 
and  Net),— thus  forming  one  group  visibly  related  closely  in  fundamental 
view  and  expression.  He  thinks  it  not  improbable  that  the  Treasure  and 
the  Pearl  went  along  with  the  last  group  of  three,  because  it  was  not 
Christ's  way  in  a  popular  discourse  to  give  merely  the  facts  or  the  meta- 
physics of  the  kingdom,  but  to  aim  at  calling  forth  a  movement  of  the 
human  will,  which  would  be  done  by  the  parables  of  the  Treasure  and  the 
Pearl.  On  the  other  hand,  he  thinks  the  parable  of  the  Mustard-seed  and 
the  Leaven  were  certainly  spoken  at  another  time  ;  founding  not  only  on 
the  fact  that  they  occur  in  different  historical  connections  in  Luke's  Gospel, 
but  also  on  their  hopeful,  triumphant  character,  so  different  from  those  of 
the  Sower,  the  Tares,  and  the  Net  {Vide  'Jesu  von  Nazara,'  ii.  446-9). 
Farrar  thinks  that  along  with  the  Sower  went  no  other  parables,  "  except 
perhaps  the  simple  and  closely  analogous  ones  of  the  Grain  of  Mustard- 
seed,  and  of  the  Blade,  the  Ear,  and  the  Full  Corn  in  the  Ear, .  .  .  per- 
haps with  these  the  similitude  of  the  Candle"  ('Life  of  Christ,'  i.  324-5). 


ch.  ii.]         The  Tares  and  the  Drag- Net,  41 

the  leading  lesson  of  both,  the  two  parables  really  constitute 
but  one  theme ;  and  to  treat  them  in  separate  chapters  were 
simply  to  repeat  thoughts  that  can  be  most  effectively  uttered 
once  for  all.  These  parables,  however,  are  not  without  their 
distinctive  features,  which  forbid  us  to  regard  the  one  as  a 
mere  repetition  of  the  other.  A  minor  point  of  difference 
is  that  in  the  parable  of  the  Tares  the  presence  of  evil  in  the 
kingdom  is  regarded  as  due  to  the  deliberate  action  of  an 
evil-minded  agent,  while  in  the  parable  of  the  Net  it  appears 
due  rather  to  accident.  A  more  important  distinction  is  that 
while  in  the  former  parable  the  separation  of  the  evil  from 
the  good  is  represented  as  for  certain  reasons  not  desirable, 
in  the  latter  it  is  tacitly  treated  as  impossible.  The  good  and 
the  bad  fish  must  remain  together  in  the  net  till  they  have 
been  dragged  to  land.  This  difference  if  pressed  would  lead 
to  another,  viz.  as  to  the  character  of  the  evil  element.  The 
tares  might  be  held  to  represent  manifested  recognisable  evil, 
the  bad  fish  unmanifested  hidden  evil — a  distinction  answer- 
ing to  that  taken  by  the  Apostle  Paul  in  the  words :  "  Some 
men's  sins  are  open  beforehand,  going  before  to  judgment, 
and  some  men  they  follow  after."  l  Another  point  of  distinc- 
tion has  been  indicated,  viz.  that  while  both  parables  teach  a 
present  mixture  of  evil  and  good,  and  an  eventual  separation, 
they  differ  as  to  the  truth  emphasised  in  each  respectively, 
the  foreground  of  the  one  picture  showing  the  temporary 
mixture,  that  of  the  other  the  ultimate  separation.  It  is, 
however,  possible  to  exaggerate  this  distinction ;  for  in  the 
parable  of  the  Tares  the  future  judgment  is  very  distinctly 
described,  and  in  the  parable  of  the  Net  the  idea  that  the 
mixture  must  last  till  the  process  of  development  is  com- 
pleted is  not  without  recognition.  The  net  is  not  drawn 
to  the  shore  till  it  is  full.  The  filling  of  the  net  answer* 
to  the  ripening  of  the  grain  as  the  sign  that  the  crisis  has 
come.  It  is,  doubtless,  a  far  less  apt  sign  ;  still  the  thing  fo 
be  noted  is  that  it  is  intended  to  serve  that  purpose.  The  net 
is  not  to  be  pulled  prematurely  to  shore ;  it  must  be  let  fully 
out  and  allowed  to  have  its  full  sweep,  that  it  may  catch  as 
many  as  possible. 

We  now  proceed  to  the  interpretation  of  the  two  parables. 
1  1  Tim.  v.  24. 


4»  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  l 

Our   attention   shall   be   first   and   principally  occupied   by 
the 

Parable  of  the  Tares. 

'  4 

The  place  and  the  time  being  probably,  the  same  as  in  the 
case  of  the  parable  of  the  Sower,  Jesus  put  before  His  hearers 
another  parable,  saying : 

The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  likened  unto  a  man  who  sowed  good  seed  in  his 
field;  but  while  men  slept,  his  enemy  came  and  sowed '  tares ' l  among 
the  wheat,  and  went  his  way.  But  when  the  blade  sprang  up  and 
brought  forth  fruit,  then  appeared  also  the  tares.  So  the  servants  of 
the  householder  came  and  said  unto  him,  Sir,  didst  not  thou  sow  good 
seed  in  thy  field  t  Whence,  then,  hath  it  tares  t  And  he  said  unto 
them,  An  enemy*  did  this.  -  And  the  servants  say  unto  him,  Wilt 
thou,  then,  that  we  go  and  gather  them  up  f  But  he  saith,  No ;  lest 
while  ye  gather  the  tares,  ye  root  up  the  wheat  along  with  them.  Let 
both  grow  together  until  the  harvest,  and  in  the  season  of  harvest  I 
will  say  to  the  reapers,  Collect  first  the  tares,  and  bind  them  into 
bundles  to  burn  them  ;  but  gather  the  wheat  into  my  barn. — MATT 
xiii.  24—30. 

This  is  one  of  the  most  difficult  in  the  whole  series  of  our 
Lord's  parables.  As  Luther  remarks,  it  appears  very  simple 
and  easy  to  understand,  especially  as  the  Lord  Himself  has 
explained  it  and  told  us  what  the  field  and  the  good  seed  and 
the  tares  are  ;  but  there  is  such  diversity  of  opinion  among 
interpreters  that  much  attention  is  needed  to  hit  the  right 
meaning.3  The  expositor's  task  is  none  the  less  arduous  that 
the  parable  has  been  mixed  up  with  great  controversies  on 
such  momentous  topics  as  Church  discipline  and  religious 
toleration,  and  the  duty  of  civil  and  ecclesiastical  rulers  in 
reference  to  heresy  and  heretics.  On  such  questions  a  man's 
opinions  are  very  apt  to  be  influenced  by  the  time  in  which 
he  lives  and  the  community  to  which  he  belongs,  and  his 
interpretation  of  any  portion  of  Scripture  that  has  been  made 
to   do   service   on  either  side  is  only  too  likely  to  exhibit 

1  The  word  tares  is  a  most  misleading  rendering  of  ra  Zi^&via,  and  we 
have  printed  it  within  inverted  commas  to  indicate  the  fact.  The  R.  V. 
retains  the  rendering  of  the  A.  V.,  probably  from  the  difficulty  of  finding 
another  word  that  exactly  conveys  the  meaning.  For  remarks  on  tho 
nature  of  the  plant  intended  see  further  on. 

*  Jx0pAc  avOpuiroe,  a  hostile  man. 

*  Hauspostillen, '  Predigt  liber  das  Evangelium  Matt.  xiii.  24 — 3a' 


ch.  H.]  The  Tares  and  the  Drag-Net.  43 

manifest  traces  of  the  bias  thence  received.  With  refeience 
to  the  parable  before  us  it  may  be  said  that  no  one  has  any 
chance  of  understanding  it  who  is  not  prepared  to  admit  that 
the  Christian  Church  in  general  is  in  many  respects  very 
different  from  what  her  Head  desired,  and  that  the  particular 
branch  of  the  Church  to  which  he  himself  belongs — nay,  that 
he  himself  as  an  individual  office-bearer  therein — may  have 
sinned  grievously  against  the  spirit  of  wise  patience  which  the 
parable  inculcates. 

Trying  to  bear  these  things  duly  in  mind,  let  us  inquire 
what  is  the  flrimd  facie  impression  produced  by  the  parable. 
Is  it  not  this  ?  That  a  mixture  of  good  and  evil  men — of 
genuine  and  counterfeit  disciples — is  to  be  expected  in  tJie 
kingdom  of  Go'd  on  earth,  and  to  be  regarded,  as  inevitable, 
with  patience,  though  not  with  complacency  ;  and  that  as  this 
mixture  is  in  itself,  if  not  in  all  respects,  yet  at  least  in  the 
main,  an  evil,  the  children  of  the  kingdom  are  to  comfort 
themselves  under  it  with  the  expectation  of  an  eventual 
separation,  which  they  are  assured  will  certainly  come  to  pass 
in  due  season.  Thus  far  the  parable  seems  plain  enough,  but 
there  are  points  on  which  one  would  gladly  receive  explana- 
tions. The  tares,  who  precisely  are  they  ?  Then,  as  to  the 
toleration  of  the  tares,  is  there  to  be  no  limit  thereto  ?  and  if 
there  is,  where  is  the  line  to  be  drawn  ?  Then  what  does  the 
toleration  amount  to  ?  Does  it  exclude  Church  discipline  for 
errors  in  opinion  and  faults  in  conduct  ?  or  is  Church  disci- 
pline to  take  its  course  even  to  the  extent  of  thrusting  offenders 
out  of  the  Church,  the  toleration  prescribed  consisting  simply 
in  permitting  the  excommunicated  to  remain  in  the  world? 
We  eagerly  turn  to  Christ's  own  explanations  for  a  solution 
of  our  doubts,  but  only  to  be  disappointed.  These  explana- 
tions are  too  elementary  to  meet  the  wants  of  those  who, 
like  ourselves,  look  back  over  a  long  course  of  historical 
development,  and  wish  to  know  how  far  that  course  is  in 
accordance  with  Christ's  mind  as  expressed  in  the  parable. 
They  were  meant  for  those  who  had  no  idea  of  the  import 
of  the  parable,  and  therefore  contain  little  more  than  the 
mere  alphabet  of  interpretation.  A  slight  inspection  will 
suffice  to  convince  us  of  this.  After  dismissing  the  multi- 
tude, Jesus,  in  answer  to  a  request  from  His  disciples,  gava 


44  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  i. 

the  following  interpretation  of  'The  Parable   of  the   Tares 
of  the  Field.' 

He  that  soweth  the  good  seed  is  the  Son  of  man ;  and  the  field  is  thi 
world;  and  the  good  seed,  these  are  the  sons  of  the  kingdom;  but  the 
tares  are  the  sons  of  the  wicked  one,1  and  the  enemy  that  sowed  them 
is  the  devil ;  and  the  harvest  is  the  end  of  the  world,  and  the  reapers 
are  angels.  As  then  the  tares  are  collected  and  burned  in  the  fire,  so 
shall  it  be  in  the  end  of  the  world.  The  Son  of  man  shall  send  forth 
His  angels,  and  they  shall  gather  out  of  His  kingdom  all  things  thai 
offend,  and  those  who  do  iniquity,  and  they  shall  cast  them  into  the 
furnace  of  fire;  there  shall  be  the  weepi7ig  and  the  gnashing  of  teeth. i 
Then  shall  the  righteous  shine  out  as  the  sun  in  the  kingdom  of  their 
Father.     Who  hath  ears,  let  him  hear. — Matt.  xiii.  37 — 43. 

From  this  explanation,  we  learn  that  in  the  present  parable 
the  wheat  and  the  tares  are  persons,  while  in  the  last  parable 
— -that  of  the  Sower — the  wheat  is  the  word  of  the  kingdom  ; 
and  that  the  soil  is  the  world  in  which  such  persons  live, 
while  in  the  Sower,  the  soil  is  the  mind  of  those  who  hear  the 
word.  We  learn,  further,  that  the  tares  are  the  children  of  the 
wicked  one,  the  good  seed  being  the  children  of  the  kingdom. 
Now  this  is  a  very  general  and  indefinite  statement,  which 
leaves  us  free  to  regard  the  tares  either  as  spurious  Christians, 
or  as  evil  men,  whether  professing  Christianity  or  not.  If  the 
more  general  meaning  be  taken,  then  the  juxtaposition  of 
wheat  and  tares  is  in  the  world,  as  the  common  abode  of  all 
sorts  of  men,  not  in  the  Church ;  and  the  lesson  to  Christians 
is  the  very  general  one  of  patience  under  the  trials  inseparable 
from  life  on  earth.  Yet,  again,  we  learn  from  this  explana- 
tion of  the  parable  given  by  Christ,  that  the  reapers  who 
make  the  final  separation  are  the  angels ;  but  we  are  not  told 
who  the  servants  were  who  inquired  Whence  these  tares  ? 
Are  the  angels  the  servants  also  ?  If  so,  then  the  parable 
contains  no  direct  instruction  as  to  the  duty  of  the  Church, 
but  simply  an  intimation  of  God's  purpose  in  providence  to 

1  Or  of  wickedness.  The  R.  V.  here,  as  in  the  Lord's  Prayer,  renders 
tov  irovripov  "  the  evil  one."  Goebel  ('  Die  Parabeln  Jesu,'p.  80)  adduces  in 
favour  of  its  being  neuter,  that  01  viol  r.  ir.  is  parallel  to  ol  vioi  rrjc  (SaaiXeias ; 
also  that  a  special  clause  is  introduced  to  indicate  the  devil  as  the  source 
of  the  wild  growth. 

s  The  articles  indicate  that  these  were  familiar  features  in  the  picture 
of  Gehenna. 


ch.  ii.  J         The  Tares  and  the  Drag-Net.  45 

permit  a  mixture  of  good  and  evil  men  in  the  world  until  the 
end  of  this  dispensation.  The  only  lesson  for  the  Church  is 
the  implied  one  of  acquiescence  in  God's  will.  The  only 
thing  in  the  explanation  which  turns  the  scale  in  favour  of  a 
more  specific  conception  of  the  drift  of  the  parable  is  the 
expression,  "gather  out  of  His  kingdom"  x  If  the  things  that 
offend,  and  they  who  do  iniquity,  are  to  be  gathered  out  of 
the  kingdom,  it  is  a  natural  inference  that  they  were  previously 
in  it ;  in  other  words,  that  the  tares  are  Christians  at  least  in 
profession. 

We  are  thus  thrown  back  on  the  parable  itself  to  see  whe 
ther  we  cannot  find  more  precise  indications  of  the  character 
of  the  evil  element.  And  on  looking  narrowly,  we  do  find 
certain  particulars  which  tend  to  prove  that  the  evil  element 
consists  not  of  bad  men  in  general  co-existing  with  Christians 
in  the  same  world  till  the  state  of  probation  closes,  but  of 
counterfeit  Christians.  First  and  chief,  there  is  the  name  of 
the  noxious  plant  which  spoils  the  crop — £i£ana ;  than  which 
none  better  could  be  found,  if  the  intention  were  to  describe 
counterfeit  sons  of  the  kingdom,  and  none  less  felicitous,  if 
the  design  were  merely  to  denote  bad  men  in  general.  The 
word  is  one  for  which  it  is  difficult  to  find  an  English  equiva- 
lent— the  nearest  approach  to  it  is  darnel;2  but  there  can  be 
no  doubt  as  to  the  kind  of  plant  it  is  employed  to  designate. 
It  is  a  plant  so  like  wheat,  that  in  the  early  stages  of  its 
growth  the  two  can  scarcely  be  distinguished  ;  so  like  that  it 
could  even  be  imagined  that  the  stalks  of  it,  which  appeared 
in  fields  sewn  with  wheat,  sprang  not  from  separate  seed,  but 
from  wheat  grains  that  had  suffered  degeneracy  through 
untoward  influences  of  soil  or  season.  This  opinion  actually 
was  entertained  by  the  inhabitants  of  Palestine  in  our  Lord's 
day,  as  it  is  still ;  and  it  is  reflected  in  the  Hebrew  name  for 
the  plant  in  question,  from  which  the  Greek  word  is  formed. 
The  Talmudic  equivalent  for  £i£ima  is  V2)h  signifying  the 
Dastard  plant,  from  f-nt,  to  commit  adultery ;  the  idea  under- 

1  Ver.  41.     vvWt£ovoiv  ik  ttjc  f3a<Ji\tiag. 

*  Greswell  thinks  we  have  no  equivalent,  and  simply  transfers  ths 
Greek  word,  putting  it  into  English  form — zizan.  Scripture  botanists 
identify  ZiZavia  with  loliiim  temulentum,  so  called  because  it  produces 
vertigo. 


46  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  i 

lying  the  word  being  that  the  earth,  in  producing  from  good 
seed  such  a  degenerate  crop,  played  the  harlot,  so  to  speak. 
Those  who  have  the  best  means  of  knowing,  say  that  this  idea 
is  a  mistaken  one  ; 2  but  it  is  at  least  of  value  as  a  testimony 
to  the  close  resemblance  between  the  wheat  and  the  '  tares '  : 
implying,  as  it  does,  that  the  plants  are  so  like,  that  the 
theory  that  tares  are  simply  wheat  in  a  degenerate  form, 
sprung  from  good  wheat  seed,  might  be  plausibly  entertained. 
This  theory  is  certainly  not  proceeded  upon  in  the  parable, 
which  represents  the  tares  as  springing  from  separate  seed 
sown  after  the  wheat  seed  had  been  cast  into  the  ground. 
But  a  resemblance  is  implied  in  the  description  of  the  tares 
not  less  close  than  if  the  theory  were  true ;  and  this  is  the 
second  point  to  which  we  ask  attention.  "  When  the  blade," 
we  read,  "was  sprung  up,  and  brought  forth  fruit,  then 
appeared  the  tares  also." 3  In  other  words,  when  the  wheat 
and  the  tares  had  got  the  length  of  being  in  ear,  then,  and 
not  till  then,  did  the  tares  appear  as  tares,  and  were  clearly 
seen  to  be  tares.  This  description,  which  well-informed 
travellers  declare  to  be  very  exactly  in  accordance  with  fact,4 
surely  suggests  a  closer  connection  between  the  two  classes 
of  men,  represented  by  the  two  crops  respectively,  than  sub- 
sists between  good  and  bad  men  living  together  in  the  same 
world.  If  by  the  bad  crop  had  been  meant  merely  bad  men 
ir  general,  why  emphasise  so  pointedly  the  non-distinguish- 
Ableness  of  the  two  crops  till  the  time  of  the  earing  ?  and  we 
may  add,  why  select  a  plant  to  represent  the  evil  element  so 

1  So  Wiinsch,  '  Neue  Beitrage  zur  Erl'auterung  der  Evangelien  aus 
Talmud  und  Midrasch,'  Gottingen,  1878.  He  remarks  :  "  Of  the  earth  in 
which  one  sows  wheat,  and  which  brings  forth  a  bad  crop,  it  is  said  that 
it  plays  the  harlot."  He  gives  an  instance  of  the  metaphorical  use  of  the 
idea,  quoting  a  Rabbi  as  saying  that  at  the  time  of  the  flood  the  earth 
proved  herself  faithless,  because,  whereas  a  good  seed  had  been  committed 
to  her,  she  brought  forth  a  degenerate  kind  (of  men),  (p.  165). 

'  Thomson,  '  The  Land  and  the  Book,'  p.  421,  argues  against  the  notion 
as  incredible. 

a  Ver.  26.     ton  l<pavrf  eal  r&  Z,iZ,avui.    They  then  appeared  as  tares. 

*  Thomson,  'The  Land  and  the  Book,'  p.  420,  says:  "In  those  parts, 
where  the  grain  has  headed  out,  they  have  done  the  same,  and  there?  a 
child  cannot  mistake  them  for  wheat  or  barley ;  but  where  both  are  less 
developed,  the  closest  scrutiny  will  often  fail  to  detect  them.  I  ".annot  do 
it  at  all  with  any  confidence." 


ch.  ii.]         The  Tares  and  the  Drag- Net,  47 

like  wheat  in  the  early  stage  of  growth  ?  why  not  be  content 
with  the  thorns,  which  in  the  parable  of  the  Sower  choked 
the  good  seed,  and  prevented  it  from  bringing  forth  fruit  unto 
perfection  ?  It  is  impossible  for  any  unbiassed  mind  to  refuse 
acquiescence  in  the  opinion  so  well  expressed  by  Lightfoot,1 
that  the  wheat  and  the  tares  signify  not  simply  good  and  bad 
men,  but  good  and  bad  Christians — both  distinct  from  other 
men  as  wheat  grain  is  distinct  from  all  other  seeds,  but  distinct 
from  each  other  as  genuine  is  distinct  from  bastard  wheat. 

The  subsequent  sowing  of  the  field  with  tares,2  and  the 
ascription  of  this  act  to  an  enemy,  are  two  additional  features 
of  the  parable  which  point  towards  the  same  conclusion. 
What  need  of  an  additional  sowing  in  order  to  get  a  crop  of 
bad  men  in  the  world,  living  side  by  side  with  the  children  of 
the  kingdom  ?  Bad  men  abounded  before  the  kingdom  of 
God,  which  Christ  came  to  found,  appeared ;  and  they  were 
certain  to  abound  after  its  appearance,  without  one  taking 
pains  for  that  purpose.  But  if  what  was  meant  by  Jesus, 
when  He  spoke  of  tares  as  likely  to  arise  when  His  kingdom 
was  planted,  was  counterfeit  forms  of  Christianity — forms  of 
evil  which  would  not  have  appeared  had  not  Christianity 
appeared,  and  manifesting  themselves  as  perversions  of 
Christian  truth — then  we  can  understand  why  He  spoke  of  an 
after-sowing  of  the  field.  Then,  too,  we  can  understand  why 
He  said  with  such  emphasis  "  an  enemy  " — or  still  more  strongly 
in  the  interpretation,  "  the  devil  " — "  hath  done  this."  For  it 
is  characteristic  of  an  enemy  animated  by  diabolical  malice, 
not  only  to  do  mischief,  but  to  do  it  in  the  most  vexatious 
possible  manner.  But  what  more  vexatious  than  to  have 
one's  crop  of  wheat  spoiled,  not  merely  by  a  crop  of  noxious 
plants  growing  up  in  the  midst  of  it,  but  by  a  crop  which 
mocks  the  husbandman's  hope  by  its  specious  resemblance  to 
the  crop  of  genuine  grain  he  has  taken  all  needful  pains  to 
raise  ?     To  do  this  is  a  feat  worthy  of  him  who  for  wicked 

1  Horae  Hebraicae,  in  Evangelium  Matthaei. 

'  That  the  tares  were  sown  after  the  wheat  is  evident  even  from  the 
I*.  R.,  which  represents  the  enemy  as  sowing  them  among  the  wheat ;  but 
it  is  made  specially  prominent  when,  in  place  of  the  font ipt  of  the  T.  R.  in 
ver.  25,  we  substitute  the  reading  liriairnptv  approved  by  critics,  rendered 
in  the  Vulgate  sttperseminavit — sowed  upon  the  wheat  previously  sown. 


48  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  l 

ends  transforms  himself  into  an  angel  of  light,  and  who,  in 
the  quaint  words  of  Luther,  cares  not  to  dwell  in  waste  dry 
places,  but  prefers  to  sit  in  heaven.1 

Taking  these  features  of  the  parable,  then,  along  with  the 
statement  in  the  interpretation  that  the  scandals  are  to  be 
gathered  out  of  the  kingdom,  we  cannot  doubt  that  the  mix- 
ture of  good  and  evil  elements  spoken  of  is  a  mixture  to  be 
exhibited,  not  in  the  world  merely,  but  in  the  kingdom  itself 
as  it  appears  on  this  earth ;  and  that  the  evil  element  is  not 
bad  men  in  general,  but  counterfeit  Christians;  or,  if  you 
please,  anti-Christian  tendencies,  perversions  of  Christian 
truth  into  forms  of  error  kindred  in  appearance,  utterly 
diverse. in  spirit;  as,  for  example,  of  spiritual  authority  into 
priestcraft,  of  salvation  by  grace  into  Antinomian  licence,  or 
of  self-denying  devotion  into  a  gloomy  asceticism.  We  do 
not,  of  course,  mean  that  the  tares  are  to  be  restricted  to 
corruptions  in  doctrine.  It  is  more  probable  that  Christ  had 
in  view  chiefly,  not  to  say  exclusively,  men  of  evil  life,  by 
their  conduct  an  offence  and  stumbling-block  to  faith.  It  is 
indeed  a  natural  enough  suggestion  that  the  two  expressions, 
"the  scandals,"  and  "those  that  do  iniquity,"  refer  to  two 
classes  of  evil ;  the  former  to  heresies,  the  latter  to  all  forms 
of  un-Christian  practice  :  possibly  united  in  the  same  persons, 
men  at  once  errorists  and  evil  livers.2  But  we  admit  that  we 
learn  to  put  this  double  construction  on  the  words  from 
history  rather  than  from  the  words  themselves.  The  dog- 
matic idea  of  heresy  is  a  creation  of  a  later  age  ;  the  word  in 
the  New  Testament  denotes  a  moral  offence.  At  the  same 
time  it  has  to  be  remembered  that  there  are  some  opinions 
which  have  their  root  in  a  corrupt  moral  condition,  which 
may  therefore  be  included  under  the  scandals  alluded  to. 

The  tares  then  are  in  the  kingdom.  But  if  so,  how  is  the 
direction  to  let  the  tares  alone  until  the  harvest  to  be  con- 
strued ?  absolutely  or  relatively,  to  the  exclusion  of  Church 

1  Hauspostillen,  *  Predigt  iiber  Matt.  xiii.  24—30.' 

*  So  Grotius.  He  remarks  that  after  the  first  pure  stage  of  the  Church's 
existence  there  began  to  mix  themselves  with  Christians:  "  Duo  hominura 
vitiosorum  genera,  alii  prava  docentes,  alii  puram  professionem  vita  turpi 
dehonestantes.  Prioris  generis  homines  aicavSaXa  hie  vocantur."— Annota- 
tiones  in  Novum  Testamentum.  Goebel  finds  in  the  text  a  reference 
only  to  evil  life.     The  scandals  are  the  deeds  of  wicked  men. 


ch.  ii. J  The  lares  and  the  Drag-Net.  49 

censures,  or,  these  being  assumed  as  in  their  own  sphere  valid, 
at  once  lawful,  beneficial,  and  obligatory  ?  This  is  the 
quaestio  vexata — a  question  all  the  harder  to  answer  that  the 
conflicting  interests  of  purity  and  patience  are  both  worthy  of 
all  respect,  so  that  no  solution  of  the  difficulty  which  sacrifices 
either  interest  to  the  other  can  satisfy  any  earnest  mind. 
Various  attempts,  at  once  historically  and  exegetically  inter- 
esting, have  been  made  to  solve  the  problem.  We  may  note 
some  of  the  more  outstanding. 

I.  First  comes  the  Donatist  solution.  The  Donatists,  whose 
aim  was  to  make  the  Church  as  pure  in  reality  as  it  is  in  idea, 
got  over  the  difficulty  very  simply,  by  denying  the  view  of  the 
tares  which  creates  it,  viz.  that  they  signify  spurious  Christians 
known  to  be  such,  yet  for  certain  reasons  to  be  tolerated. 
The  point  in  the  parable  and  its  interpretation  on  which  they 
laid  chief  stress,  was  the  statement,  "  the  field  is  the  world," 
and  the  lesson  they  drew  from  the  parable  was,  Bear  patiently 
the  evil  that  is  in  the  world, — a  duty  involving  no  obligation 
to  tolerate  evil  in  the  Church.  When  their  opponents  pointed 
to  the  parable  of  the  Net  in  proof  that  Christ  contemplated  a 
mixture  of  good  and  evil  in  the  Church  as  a  characteristic  of 
its  state  antecedent  to  the  end,  they  admitted  that  such  a 
mixture  was  implied  in  that  parable,  but  they  evaded  the 
force  of  the  fact  as  an  argument  against  their  position  by 
saying  that  it  was  only  such  a  mixture  as  was  due  to  ignor- 
ance on  the  part  of  the  Church  authorities.  No  one  can  tell 
what  sort  of  fish  are  in  a  net  while  it  is  under  the  water,  and 
in  like  manner  there  may  be  men  in  the  Church  of  unholy 
character  not  known  to  be  unholy,  and  their  presence  argues 
nothing  in  favour  of  tolerating  within  the  Church  men  known 
to  be  unholy.1  For  the  reasons  already  given  we  cannot 
acquiesce  in  this  solution.  The  tares,  we  have  seen,  are 
counterfeit  Christians  subsisting  side  by  side  with  genuine 
Christians  within  the  kingdom.  Nor  does  the  statement  "  the 
field  is  the  world  "  in  the  least  invalidate  the  argument  in 
support  of  that  position.  The  field  indeed  is  the  world,  and 
the  statement  is  one  of  the  numerous  passages  in  the  teaching 

1  Augustine  gives  an  account  of  this  controversy  as  to  the  interpretation 
of  the  parable  between  the  Catholics  and  the  Donatists  in  the  tract '  Ad 
Donatistas  post  Collationem.' 

B 


50  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  i. 

of  Christ  which  show  that  in  His  conception  the  kingdom  of 
God,  whose  advent  He  announced,  was  designed  to  cover  the 
whole  earth,  and  the  gospel  He  preached  good  news  for  all 
mankind.  But  while  the  field  to  be  sown  is  the  whole  world, 
the  field  actually  sown  is  the  kingdom  of  God,  as  it  exists  in 
the  earth  at  any  given  time,  and  the  tares  are  within  it ;  not 
of  the  kingdom  as  it  is  in  God's  sight,  but  in  the  kingdom  as  a 
visible  society. 

2.  We  notice  next  the  Catholic  solution  of  later  times. 
This  view,  while  admitting  that  the  mixture  spoken  of  in  the 
parable  exists  in  the  kingdom  and  not  merely  in  the  world, 
and  yet  contending  that  heretics  might  not  merely  be  excom- 
municated but  be  put  to  death,  sought  to  reconcile  existing 
practice  with  the  prohibition  against  pulling  up  the  tares  by 
laying  chief  stress  on  the  reason  assigned  for  the  prohibition 
— "  lest  while  ye  gather  the  tares  ye  root  up  also  the  wheat 
with  them  ;  "  which  was  interpreted  to  mean,  Then  and  then 
only  must  the  tares  be  left  alone  when  there  is  a  risk  of  the 
wheat  being  uprooted  ;  in  other  circumstances  the  tares  may 
be  gathered  up  at  once.  Aquinas,  in  stating  this  view,  adopts 
the  language  of  Augustine  to  the  following  effect :  "  Where 
that  fear  (of  uprooting  the  wheat)  has  no  place,  but  there  is 
perfect  security  for  the  certain  stability  of  the  wheat,  that 
is,  when  the  offence  of  every  one  is  so  known,  and  appears 
execrable  to  all,  that  it  either  has  no  defenders,  or  none  such 
as  might  cause  a  schism,  let  not  the  severity  of  discipline 
slumber." 1  Whether  this  conversion  of  an  apparently  abso- 
lute into  a  conditional  prohibition  be  legitimate  or  not  is 
a  question  for  serious  consideration,  but  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  words  quoted  from  Augustine  by  the  great 
mediaeval  doctor  point  out  a  real  and  most  important  limita- 
tion of  Church  discipline.  Where  there  is  a  risk  of  a  schism 
being  caused  by  severe  dealing  with  offenders,  whether  in 

1  "Cum  metus  iste  non  subest,  sed  omnino  de  frumentorum  certa 
stabilitate  certa  securitas  manet,  id  est,  quando  ita  cujusque  crimen  notum 
est,  et  omnibus  execrabile  apparet,  ut  vel  nullos  prorsus  vel  non  tales 
habeat  defensores,  per  quos  possit  schisma  contingere,  non  dormiat 
severitas  disciplinae."  'August,  contra  Epistolam  Parmeniani,' lib.  iii.f 
cap.  ii.,  13.  The  words  are  quoted  by  Aquinas  in  the  'Sununa'  2«  2m 
Ques.  x.,  Art  viiL 


ch.  ii.]         The  Tares  and  tlie  Drag-Net.  51 

matters  of  faith  or  in  matters  of  conduct,  the  Church  is  not 
only  entitled  but  bound  to  consider  the  question — Which  of 
the  two  evils  is  most  to  be  feared,  the  toleration  of  reputed 
corruption  in  doctrine  or  practice,  or  a  rupture  in  the  body 
ecclesiastical  ?  It  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  other  instances 
in  which  a  prudent  regard  to  the  Church's  highest  interests 
might  dictate  the  policy  of  letting  the  exercise  of  ecclesi- 
astical censures  fall  into  abeyance.  Jerome  points  out  one, 
when,  commenting  on  the  prohibition  against  uprooting  the 
tares,  and  on  the  reason  annexed,  he  says  :  "  We  are  exhorted 
not  quickly  to  cut  off  a  brother,  because  it  can  happen  that 
he  who  to-day  is  depraved  by  noxious  doctrine  may  to-morrow 
repent  and  begin  to  defend  the  truth."1  It  is  well  for  the 
Church  when  its  office-bearers  are  able  to  apply  wisely  these 
two  principles  enunciated  by  two  of  the  most  esteemed  among 
the  ancient  Fathers. 

3.  Coming  down  to  the  time  of  the  Reformation,  we  may 
select  for  notice  the  interpretations  given  respectively  by 
Luther  and  Beza.  Luther,  in  a  sermon  on  the  parable,  asks 
two  questions — whether  the  Church  may  use  her  authority 
and  excommunicate  those  who  create  scandal,  and  whether 
the  civil  magistrate  may  use  the  sword  against  heretics.  The 
former  question  he  answers  in  the  affirmative  ;  and  he  recon- 
ciles his  view  with  the  prohibition  in  the  parable  by  remarking 
that  what  is  prohibited  is  the  destruction  of  the  tares.  Those 
who  exercise  authority  in  the  Church  may  excommunicate 
but  not  kill  heretics.  His  second  question  Luther  also 
answers  in  the  affirmative,  reconciling  his  answer  with  the 
parable  by  remarking  that  the  Lord  speaks  of  the  kingdom  of 
God,  and  of  what  those  who  exercise  authority  there  may  do  ; 
so  that  the  prohibition  does  not  mean  heretics  shall  not  be 
slain,  but  merely  they  shall  not  be  slain  by  the  ministers  of 
the  Gospel.2  This  interpretation  of  the  great  German  reformer 
needs  no  elaborate  refutation.  It  may  be  answered  in  a 
single  sentence.  What  the  Master  in  the  parable  prohibits 
is  not,  as  Luther  alleges,  the  destruction  of  the  tares,  but  their 
removal  from  the  field,  their  separation  from  the  wheat. 

4.  Beza,  while  acquiescing  in  Luther's  doctrine  that  heretics 

1  Comment,  in  Matthseum. 

•  Hauspostillen,    Predigt  iiber  das  Evang.  Matt,  xiii  24  —3*' 

£  2 


52  TJie  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  l 

may  be  proceeded  against  by  the  censures  of  the  Church  and 
the  sword  of  the  civil  magistrate,  adopted  an  entirely  different 
method  of  harmonising  that  doctrine  with  the  teaching  of  the 
parable.  He  expounded  his  views  of  the  parable  in  a  tract  in 
defence  of  the  use  of  the  sword  against  heresy  by  the  civil  magis- 
trate, in  connection  with  the  burning  of  Servetus  ;  his  purpose 
being  to  reply  to  an  argument  drawn  from  the  parable  by  his 
opponents  in  favour  of  religious  toleration.  These  were,  in 
brief,  as  follows: — The  tares  are  not  heretics  merely, but  all  sorts 
of  offenders,  and  therefore  if  the  parable  contains  a  prohibition 
against  the  killing  of  heretics  by  the  civil  magistrate,  it  equally 
contains  a  prohibition  against  the  execution  of  all  sorts  of 
evil-doers, — which  is  absurd.  But  the  parable  in  reality  con- 
tains no  prohibition,  at  least  none  directed  either  to  ecclesi- 
astical authorities  or  to  the  civil  magistrate :  the  servants  are 
the  angels,  and  the  parable  represents  God  as  telling  them  on 
what  method  He  is  to  conduct  His  ordinary  providential 
government.  "  As  in  the  beginning  of  the  history  of  Job,  so 
here,  the  Lord  is  shown  conversing  with  His  angels  concern- 
ing the  future  state  of  His  Church  in  this  world."  That  state 
in  general  is  to  be  one  of  tribulation,  the  children  of  the 
kingdom  mingling  in  the  intercourse  of  life  with  unbelieving 
and  ungodly  men,  and  enduring  much  at  their  hands.  The 
only  lesson  for  Christians  to  be  inferred  from  the  parable  is 
the  duty  of  bearing  patiently  with  this  general  condition  of 
things.  Against  the  appropriate  punishment  of  individual 
evil-doers,  whether  in  Church  or  in  State,  it  says  not  a  word. 
It  is  assumed  that  such  punishment  is  to  be  inflicted  as  far  as 
possible ;  only  we  are  given  to  understand  that  when  ecclesi- 
astical and  civil  officers  have  done  their  utmost,  the  world 
will  after  all  be  a  most  ungenial  home  for  the  children  of  the 
kingdom.  After  the  remarks  already  made  in  discussing  the 
question  who  are  the  tares,  we  deem  it  quite  unnecessary  to 
enter  into  detailed  criticism  of  this  interpretation.  We  only 
observe  how  unlikely  it  is  that  Christ  should  utter  a  parable 
teaching  so  very  general  and  commonplace  a  truth  at  the 
time  and  in  the  circumstances  in  which  there  is  reason  to 
believe  the  parable  was  spoken  ;  and  how  unlikely,  if  He 
desired  to  convey  such  a  lesson,  that  He  would  put  the  truth 
to  so  unsuitable  a  form.     Why  call  wicked  men  in  general 


ch.  ii.]  The   Tares  and  the  Drag-Net.  $$ 

tares  f — why  not  rather,  as  on  other  occasions,  speak  of  them 
as  wolves,  to  whose  violence  His  sheep  are  to  be  exposed  in' 
this  world  ?  If  we  desire  to  know  how  our  Lord  spoke  to 
His  disciples  of  the  tribulations  they  should  encounter  in  the 
world,  we  must  turn  not  to  this  parable,  but  to  His  discourse 
to  the  twelve  in  connection  with  the  Galilean  mission,1  or  to 
His  farewell  address  to  them  on  the  eve  of  His  Passion.2 

5.  Only  one  other  solution  of  the  problem  now  under 
consideration  calls  for  mention,  viz.  that  hinted  at  by  Jerome 
and  favoured  by  many  modern  theologians  of  high  reputation. 
This  view  finds  the  key  to  the  interpretation  of  the  parable 
in  the  likeness  of  the  tares  to  the  wheat  and  the  risk  thence 
arising  of  pulling  up  wheat  by  mistake?  The  words,  "lest 
while  ye  gather  up  the  tares  ye  root  up  also  the  wheat  with 
them,"  it  takes  to  mean,  not  "lest  ye  pull  up  that  which 
though  tares  to-day  may  be  wheat  to-morrow,"  but  "  lest  in 
pulling  up  that  which  ye  fancy  to  be  tares  ye  uproot  that 
which  in  reality  is  wheat."  The  reason  for  the  prohibition 
being  thus  understood,  it  is  of  course  assumed  that  when 
there  is  no  room  for  doubt  as  to  the  noxious  character  of  the 
plants  mixed  with  the  wheat,  they  may  at  once  be  removed. 
Now  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  there  is  a  close  resemblance 
between  the  tares  and  the  wheat,  and  that  there  is  an  intention 
in  the  parable  to  emphasise  the  fact.  It  is  meant  that  we 
should  note  that  tares,  as  Bengel  remarks,  have  a  much  better 
appearance  than  thorns  and  thistles.4  It  may  also  be  ad- 
mitted, as  the  same  writer  observes,  that  from  the  toleration 
of  tares  we  may  not  argue  for  the  toleration  of  thorns 6  and 
thistles,  which,  as  we  are  told  by  another  patron  of  this  view, 
only  a  wretched  farmer  would  suffer  in  his  fields.6  Nor  is  it 
difficult  to  imagine  forms  of  spiritual  evil  answering  to  the 
tares  which  have  to  be  tolerated,  as  distinct  from  forms 
answering  to  thorns  and  thistles  which  may  not  be  tolerated. 

1  Matt.  x.  16.  a  John  xvi. 

8  Jerome  says  :  u  Inter  triticum  et  zizania,  quod  nos  appellamus  lolium, 
quamdiu  herba  est,  et  nondum  culmus  venit  ad  spicam,  grandis  similitudo 
est,  et  in  discernendo  aut  nulla  aut  perdifficilis  distantia." — '  Comment,  in 
Matthaeum.' 

4  "  Zizania  majorem  speciem  habent  quam  cardui  et  spinae." — Gnomon. 

•  "A  tolerantia  illorum  ad  horum  non  valet  consequential' — Gnomon. 

•  De  Valenti, '  Die  Parabeln  des  Herrn.' 


54  Tfie  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  u 

We  are  quite  willing  to  accept  the  description  of  the  spiritual 
tares  given  by  the  author  last  referred  to :  "  They  are  the 
false  brethren, '  the  "  dogs,"  the  "concision,"  the  "  lying  apostles 
who,  like  the  devil  himself,  transform  themselves  into  angels 
of  light — men,  in  short,  whose  corrupt  conduct  is  not  alto- 
gether hidden  from  the  true  servants  of  the  Lord,  but  who 
yet,  with  all  their  badness,  show  a  certain  skill  and  moderation, 
so  that  no  truly  Christian  society  has  the  courage  to  subject 
them  to  Church  censures." x  But  the  difficulty  which  stands 
in  the  way  of  our  accepting  this  interpretation  is  that  in  the 
parable  it  seems  plainly  implied  that  at  the  stage  of  growth 
at  which  the  crop  had  arrived,  the  difference  between  wheat 
and  tares  could  be  plainly  recognised,  so  that  if  it  had  been 
desirable  the  servants  could  have  taken  out  each  individual 
stalk  of  tares  without  mistake,  at  least  without  mistake  arising 
from  ignorance,  for  of  course  mistakes  through  carelessness 
would  be  very  likely  to  happen.  And  further,  the  evil 
apprehended  does  not  appear  to  be  that  wheat  may  be  pulled 
up  by  mistake,  but  that  wheat  may  be  pulled  up  along  with 
the  tares,  owing  to  the  intertwining  of  their  roots  in  the  soil. 
It  is  not  said,  Lest  ye  root  up  wheat  instead  of  tares,  but, 
Lest  ye  uproot  the  wheat  along  with  them.2  We  cannot 
avoid  the  conclusion,  therefore,  that  whatever  lesson  our  Lord 
desired  to  teach,  He  meant  to  apply  not  merely  to  forms  of 
evil  of  doubtful  tendency,  but  to  forms  of  evil  whose  character 
and  tendency  can  no  longer  be  doubted.8 

But  how,  then,  are  we  to  get  over  the  difficulty  with  which 
all  the  foregoing  interpretations  unsuccessfully  grapple  ? 
Simply  by  bearing  duly  in  mind  this  very  elementary  con- 
sideration, that  Christ  is  not  here  laying  down  a  rule  for 
the  regulation  of  ecclesiastical  practice,  but  inculcating  the 

1  De  Valenti,  i.,  p.  163. 

J  Spa  avroiQ  :  ilfia  is  not  a  preposition  but  an  adverb.  Meyer  translates 
the  words  "at  the  same  time  by  them  "  (zugleich  durch  sie), — taking  avrole 
as  an  instrumental  dative.  The  idea  is  that  the  uprooted  tares  carry  along 
with  them  the  wheat,  owing  to  the  solidarity  of  the  two  in  the  soil. 

•  Besides  Bengel  and  De  Valenti,  may  be  mentioned  as  supporting  the 
foregoing  interpretation,  Tholuck,  who  in  an  interesting  discussion  of  the 
parable  in  the  '  Literarischer  Anzeiger'  for  1847,  in  a  review  of  Trench'i 
work  on  the  Parables,  goes  very  fully  into  the  history  of  opinion.  Trench 
himself  favours  this  interpretation,  though  not  adopting  it  exclusively. 


ch.  ii.]  The  Tares  and  the  Drag-Net.  5^ 

cultivation  of  a  certain  spirit — the  spirit  of  wise  patience ;  a 
spirit  to  be  cherished  by  all  men  in  all  spheres,  civil  and 
ecclesiastical,  but  especially  by  Christians,  the  children  of 
the  kingdom.  What  has  been  well  said  concerning  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  applies  to  this  parable:  everything 
in  this  discourse  refers  us  to  the  world  of  temper  and 
disposition.1  Beza  was  not  wrong  in  saying  that  the  lesson 
of  the  parable  is  a  lesson  of  patience ;  his  error  lay  in 
restricting  the  scope  of  the  lesson  to  the  tribulations  Chris- 
tians encounter  in  the  world.  The  lesson  applies  not  only 
to  the  evils  in  the  world,  but  also,  and  more  particularly, 
and  chiefly,  to  the  evils  in  the  Church ;  it  applies  to  the 
bearing  and  behaviour  of  Christians  towards  these  evils, 
however  exhibited,  whether  in  formal  Church  discipline,  or 
in  private  and  social  intercourse.  The  parable  neither  pro- 
hibits nor  fixes  limits  to  ecclesiastical  discipline,  but  teaches 
a  spirit  which  will  affect  that  part,  as  well  as  all  other  parts, 
of  religious  conduct ;  and  which,  had  it  prevailed  in  the 
Church  more  than  it  ever  has  prevailed,  would  have  made 
the  Church's  history  very  different  from  what  it  is.  A  recent 
writer  on  the  parables,  who  interprets  this  parable  as  Beza 
did,  while  of  course  having  no  sympathy  with  the  persecuting 
principles  advocated  by  the  sixteenth  century  divine,  tries  to 
shut  into  a  corner  those  who  hold  that  the  parable  inculcates 
a  tolerant  attitude  towards  evil  in  the  Church  by  a  peremp- 
tory logic  of  alternatives,  thus  :  the  prohibition  against  pulling 
up  the  tares  is  absolute ;  therefore  either  Church  discipline 
is  absolutely  prohibited,  or  it  does  not  bear  upon  discipline 
at  all.2     The  futility  of  this  Either-or  logic  may  be  very  easily 

1  Martensen,  '  Christian  Ethics,'  p.  382. 

1  Arnot  on  the  '  Parables  of  our  Lord,'  p.  95.  This  respected  author 
accuses  Dr.  Trench  of  an  Erastian  bias  in  his  way  of  applying  the  parable 
to  the  subject  of  discipline.  But  bias  in  an  opposite  direction  is  very 
manifest  in  his  own  case.  He  assumes  that  the  ecclesiastical  practice  of 
his  own  Church  in  such  matters  is  unquestionably  right  :  the  possibility  of 
the  contrary  does  not  seem  to  have  entered  into  his  mind.  This  is  the 
secret  of  his  partiality  for  the  Donatist  interpretation  of  the  words,  "the 
field  is  the  world.'  This  example  may  illustrate  what  we  said  at  the 
commencement,  that  a  man  has  no  chance  of  understanding  this  parable 
who  is  not  prepared  to  admit  the  possibility  of  his  own  Church,  yea,  of 
himself,  sinning  against  the  Lord's  mind  as  set  forth  therein.     There  ara 


56  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  i. 

shown  by  a  parallel  case.  In  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  th« 
Preacher  says,  "  Swear  not  at  all."  Are  we  to  say,  This  is 
either  an  absolute  prohibition  of  oath-taking,  or  it  has  no 
bearing  on  the  subject  of  oaths  ?  Certainly  not.  The  pre- 
cept does  not  absolutely  prohibit  oaths,  and  yet  it  does  bear 
most  closely  on  the  subject  of  oaths.  It  means,  let  there  !&« 
no  occasion,  so  far  as  you  are  concerned,  for  swearing  oaths  ; 
let  your  utterances  be  absolutely  truthful,  your  yea,  yea,  and 
your  nay,  nay.  It  is  a  precept  whose  importance  every 
Christian  acknowledges,  yet  few  dream  of  its  being  incom- 
patible with  the  actual  swearing  of  oaths  on  proper  occasions 
for  confirmation  of  one's  word,  and  to  put  an  end  to  doubt 
and  strife.  For  however  truthful  I  may  be,  I  know  that 
there  are  many  false  men  in  the  world,  and  that  therefore 
distrust  is  excusable — distrust  even  towards  myself,  seeing  it 
is  hard  to  know  true  men  from  knaves.  Even  so,  while  the 
world  lasts,  there  will  be  need  and  room  in  the  Church  for 
the  exercise  of  discipline,  that  the  reality  of  Christian  life  in 
the  holy  commonwealth  may  come  as  near  as  possible  to  its 
high  ideal ;  and  yet  the  lesson  of  our  parable  will  always  be 
valid  as  a  protest  against  all  Church  censures  springing  out  of 
an  impatient  view  of  the  evils  inseparable  from  the  kingdom  of 
God  in  its  present  earthly  state,  and  as  an  admonition  to  those 
who  have  authority  in  the  kingdom  to  exercise  their  authority 
in  accordance  with  the  rule  so  well  expressed  by  Augustine : 
"Let  discipline  preserve  patience,  and  let  patience  temper  dis- 
cipline, and  let  both  be  referred  to  charity,  so  that  on  the  one 
hand  an  undisciplined  patience  may  not  foster  iniquity,  and 
on  the  other  hand  an  impatient  discipline  may  not  dissipate 
unity."1 

The  philosophy  of  this  patience  with  evil  prevalent  in  the 
visible  Church  is  not  fully  given  in  the  parable ;  at  most  we 
have  but  a  hint  of  the  rationale,  though  it  is  a  hint  which 
suggests  much  more  than  it  says  to  those  who  understand. 
Before  remarking  on  this  pregnant  hint  we  cannot  but  advert 
in  passing  to  the  marked  contrast  between  the  implied  teach- 
ing of  the  parable  of  the  Sower  and  that  of  this  parable,  as  to 
the  mode  of  dealing  with  evil  appearing  in  connection  with 

certainly  two  sides  to  the  question  how  far  a  jealous  exercise  of  discipline 
is  wise  or  unwise. 
1  '  Ad  Donatistas  post  Collationem.'  iv.  6t 


ch.  u.J  The  Tares  and  the  Drag- Net,  57 

the  work  of  the  kingdom.  The  implied  teaching  of  the  former 
parable,  in  reference  to  the  thorns,  is :  Get  rid  of  them,  else 
there  will  be  no  crop  of  good  grain.  The  expressed  teaching 
of  the  present  parable  with  reference  to  the  tares  is :  Let  them 
alone  till  the  good  grain  is  ripe.  Whence  this  difference  ? 
Hence :  the  evil  in  the  one  case  is  within  ourselves,  in  the 
other  case  it  is  without  us,  in  other  men.  The  doctrine  of  the 
one  parable  is,  Tolerating  evil  in  ourselves  is  deadly  to  our 
spiritual  interest ;  that  of  the  other,  Tolerating  evil  in  others 
is  not  necessarily  so — may  even  be  profitable  as  an  exercise 
promoting  the  growth  of  the  graces  of  patience  and  charity. 
Thus  viewed,  the  lessons  of  the  two  parables  are  not  only 
mutually  compatible,  but  in  harmony  with  the  whole  tenour 
of  our  Lord's  ethical  teaching.  On  the  one  hand,  He  ever 
inculcated  inexorable  severity  in  self-judgment,  saying,  e.g. 
in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  "  If  thy  right  eye  or  thy  right 
hand  offend  thee,  pluck  it  out,  or  cut  it  off  and  cast  it  from 
thee  ; " x  on  the  other,  with  reference  to  our  fellow-men,  He 
gave  this  counsel  in  the  very  same  discourse,  "Judge  not,  that 
ye  be  not  judged."  2  Many  are  slow  to  understand  the  grounds 
of  these  diverse  counsels,  and  appear  to  think  themselves  as 
responsible  for  the  sins  of  their  brethren  as  for  their  own  ;  not 
to  say  more,  for  there  are  some  of  whom  more  could  be  said, 
viz.  that  they  behold  a  mote  in  their  brother's  eye,  and  con- 
sider not  the  beam  that  is  in  their  own  eye.3  It  is,  indeed,  a 
question  deserving  serious  consideration  on  the  part  of  all 
Christians,  what  are  the  limits  of  responsibility  in  connection 
with  the  sins  of  fellow-members  of  the  same  religious  com- 
munion ?  That  there  is  a  certain  amount  of  responsibility 
cannot  be  denied,  for  the  Church  is  not  an  hotel  in  which 
men  may  sit  side  by  side  at  table,  without  knowing,  or  caring 
to  know,  anything  about  the  character  of  a  fellow-guest.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  responsibility  is  a  strictly  limited  one, 
coming  far  short  of  the  responsibility  lying  on  each  man  for 
his  own  conduct ;  for  if  the  Christian  Church  is  not  an  hotel, 
as  little  is  it  a  club  whose  members  may  claim  and  use  the 
right  of  excluding  from  membership  every  one  who  is  not  in 
all  respects  a  person  according  to  their  taste  and  fancy.    This 

1  Matt.  v.  29,  30.      See  also  Matt,  xviii.  8,  9,  where  the   counsel  ia 
repeated  in  the  sermon  on  Humility. 
■  Matt.  vii.  1.  •  Matt.  vii.  13. 


58  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  i. 

club  theory  of  Church  fellowship,  however,  is  much  to  the 
liking  of  many.  It  was  the  theory  in  favour  with  the  Dona- 
tists,  who  held  that  mixed  communions  were  infectious,  and 
that  the  pious  were  polluted  by  fellowship  with  the  profane. 
Against  this  ultra-puritanic  theory  the  quaint  observations  of 
Fuller  may  aptly  be  cited  :  "  St.  Paul  saith, '  But  let  a  man 
examine  himself \  and  so  let  him  eat  of  that  bread?  but  enjoins 
not  men  to  examine  others,  which  was  necessary  if  bad  com- 
municants do  defile.  It  neither  makes  the  cheer  or  welcome 
the  worse  to  sit  next  to  him  at  God's  table  who  wants  a 
wedding  garment ;  for  he  that  touches  his  person,  but  dis- 
claims his  practices,  is  as  far  from  him  as  the  east  from  the 
west,  yea,  as  heaven  from  hell.  In  bodily  diseases  one  may 
be  infected  without  his  knowledge,  against  his  will :  not  so  in 
spiritual  contagions,  where  acceditur ad  vitium  corruptionis  vitio 
consensionis,  and  none  can  be  infected  against  their  consent."  * 
Let  us  now  look  at  the  hints  contained  in  the  parable  at  a 
philosophy  of  the  patience  it  inculcates  towards  the  evil 
existing  in  the  visible  Church.  "  Nay,"  said  the  householder 
to  the  servants  who  proposed  that  the  tares  should  at  once  be 
gathered  out ;  "  lest  while  ye  gather  up  the  tares  ye  root  up 
also  the  wheat  with  them."  Then,  to  explain  wherein  the 
harm  of  such  a  result  lay,  he  added  :  "  Let  both  grow  together 
until  the  harvest."  That  is,  the  uprooting  of  the  wheat  is  an 
evil  when  it  happens  during  the  process  of  growth.  When 
that  process  is  complete  no  harm  can  be  done,  the  time  for 
uprooting  or  cutting  down  having  arrived.  The  doctrine  of 
the  parable  therefore  is  :  The  matter  of  prime  importance  is 
fot  that  the  tares  be  got  rid  of,  but  that  the  wheat  pass 
through  the  natural  course  of  development  till  the  process  of 
growth  reach  its  consummation.  If  both  ends  cannot  be  ac- 
complished together,  beware  of  sacrificing  the  more  important 
to  the  less  important.8 

Thomas  Fuller  :  'The  Profane  State,' bk.  v.  chap  ii.,  on  The  Rigid 
Donatists.  The  Latin  quotation  in  the  above  extract  is  from  Augustine 
1  Contra  Donatistas  post  Collationem.'  In  the  same  tract  Augustine 
expresses  the  principle  of  limited  responsibility  in  terms  first  used  by  the 
Donatists  in  self-defence,  and  then  turned  against  them  by  the  Catholics : 
*  Nee  causae  causa,  nee  personam  persona  prsejudicat." 

'  Keim  says,  "  The  parable  shows  the  deep  wisdom  of  Jesus  forbidding 
all  violent  attacks  against  evil  as  an  interference  not  only  with  the  Divine 


ch.  ii.]  The  Tares  and  the  Drag-Net.  59 

But  headlong  zeal  for  purity  is  ready  to  ask,  Why  cannot 
the  two  ends  be  accomplished  together?  how  should  the 
growth  of  the  wheat  be  imperilled  by  the  uprooting  of  the 
tares  ?  Thoughtful  minds  have  suggested  various  answers  to 
these  questions.  Perhaps  the  case  in  which  the  risk  is  most 
obvious  is  that  in  which  the  tares  are  represented  not  by  a  few 
individual  instances  of  men  holding  unwholesome  opinions, 
and  indulging  in  unchristian  practices,  but  by  an  evil  tendency, 
widespread  in  society,  such  as  the  rationalism  which  prevailed 
so  extensively  in  the  churches  in  the  eighteenth  century.  It 
is  such  a  case  that  is  contemplated  in  the  parable.  The  wild 
crop  is  so  abundant  as  to  make  the  question  of  the  servants 
14  Didst  thou  not  sow  wheat  ? ",  implying  a  shade  of  doubt,  not 
an  impertinence.  The  corresponding  state  of  things  in  the 
kingdom  indicated  thereby  is  such  as  to  be  a  stumbling-block 
to  faith,  and  to  give  rise  to  doubt  whether  it  be  the  kingdom 
of  God  at  all,  and  not  rather  the  kingdom  of  darkness  and 
evil  j1  such  as  to  demand  Satanic  influence  for  its  explanation, 
This  must  be  borne  in  mind  in  connection  with  the  prohibition 
to  uproot  the  tares,  which  has  reference  to  the  special  case 
supposed,  that  of  a  crop  of  tares  growing  from  seed  sown  over 
the  whole  field,  and  is  compatible  with  a  contrary  practice 
when  the  tares  are  merely  stray  stalks  growing  accidentally 
in  the  field.  In  such  a  case  they  are  actually  gathered  out  of 
a  growing  crop  at  the  present  hour,2  and  probably  were  also 
in  our  Lord's  time,  as  the  proposal  of  the  servants  to  uproot 
them  implies.    If  so,  then  we  must  conclude  that  an  exceptional 

order  of  judgment,  but  with  the  order  of  the  earthly  development  in  good 
and  evil ;  the  fine  thought  being  quietly  insinuated  that  the  undeveloped 
good  can  easily  appear  to  the  human  eye  as  bad,  and  the  bad  as  good,  so 
that  both  can  assume  a  fixed  definite  character  only  through  the  tolerating 
of  the  process  of  development."    '  Jesu  von  Nazara,'  ii.  450. 

1  This  ii  implied  by  the  expression  rd  aicdvSaXa,  v.  41.  So  Goebel. 
No  stress  is  to  be  laid  on  the  etymological  meaning  of  the  word — trapstick, 
as  if  the  evil  men  in  the  kingdom  were  deceivers. 

8  So  Stanley  reports, '  Sinai  and  Palestine,'  p.  426.  My  esteemed  friend, 
Dr.  Robertson  Smith,  late  Professor  of  Hebrew  in  the  Free  Church 
College,  Aberdeen,  now  Lord  Almoner's  Professor  of  Arabic  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Cambridge,  and  Librarian  of  that  University,  informs  me  that 
during  a  recent  visit  to  the  East  he  ascertained  the  present  practice  to  be  as 
stated  above.  I  cannot  refer  to  his  name  without  expressing  my  deep  re- 
gret that  his  great  talents  have  been  lost  to  the  Scottish  Church. 


60  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  i. 

case  is  supposed  in  the  parable,  to  convey  an  adequate  idea  of 
the  extent  to  which  corruption  would  prevail  in  the  Church, 
and  also  the  special  need  for  care  in  the  spiritual  sphere  not 
to  uproot  anything  good. 

For  such  a  state  of  things  as  that  implied  in  the  parable 
tne  only  remedy  is  patience — a  patience  inspired  and  sustained 
by  the  hope  that  a  new  time  will  come,  bringing  a  new  spirit, 
a  new  faith,  and  a  new  life ;  a  hope  that  maketh  not  ashamed, 
and  which  has  never  been  disappointed  from  the  beginning  of 
the  Christian  era  till  now.  In  such  a  state  of  things  impa- 
tience, prompting  to  stamping-out  measures,  is  folly,  and  has 
been  condemned  as  such  by  the  wisest  in  the  Church  from  the 
time  of  Augustine  downwards.  Such  a  policy  of  impatience 
forgets  the  solidarity  of  men  living  together  in  the  same 
religious  community :  the  many  ties,  spiritual  and  social, 
by  which  they  are  knit  together ;  and  the  penalty  of  its 
heedlessness  is  dismemberment,  schism, — the  extensive  up- 
rooting of  wheat  and  tares  together.  Far  better  tolerate  the 
evil,  even  if  it  were  in  your  power  to  get  rid  of  it,  than  uproot 
it  at  such  a  cost.  And  if  the  evil  should  be  so  prevalent  as  to 
outnumber  and  overpower  the  good — and  this  is  quite  a 
possible  case — equally  to  be  condemned  is  the  form  which  the 
policy  of  impatience  is  then  apt  to  assume  ;  "that,  viz.  of  the 
wheat  pulling  up,  not  the  tares,  but  itself,  even  when  the  tares 
are  quite  willing  to  live  side  by  side  with  it.  In  such  a  case 
the  wheat  should  remain  among  the  tares,  and  grow  there  as 
long  as  the  tares  will  permit  it.  The  Donatistic  spirit  dictates 
another  course.  It  says,  "  Come  out  from  among  them,  and 
be  ye  separate."  Alas  that  it  should  have  found  so  many  at 
all  times  ready  to  obey  its  summons,  and  forsake  the  Church 
in  disgust  because  all  goes  not  according  to  their  wish,  and 
because  nowhere  appears  absolute  purity;1  heedless  of  the 
warning  that  "  they  may  fly  so  far  from  mystical  Babylon  as  to 
run  to  literal  Babel,  bring  all  to  confusion,  and  founder  the 
commonwealth !  "* 

1  Calvin  says  :  "  Plerique  zeli  praetextu,  plus  aequo  morosi,  nisi  omnia 
ad  eorum  votum  composita  sint,  quia  nusquam  apparet  absoluta  puritas, 
tumultuose  ab  ecclesia  discedunt  vel  importuno  rigore  earn  evertunt  atf 
perdunt." — 'Comment,  in  Harmoniam  Evang.' 

*  Thomas  Fuller :  •  Profane  State,'  bk.  v.  chap.  ii. 


ch.  n.1         The  Tares  and  the  Drag-Net.  61 

In  pursuing  this  policy  of  impatience,  whether  in  the  way  of 
pulling  up  the  tares  or  in  the  way  of  pulling  up  itself,  the 
wheat  does  itself  much  spiritual  harm,  quite  distinct  from  the 
external  evil  of  separation  into  sects.  The  policy  tends  to 
foster  pride  and  uncharitableness,  and  so  prevents  the  wheat 
from  ripening,  or  causes  it  to  degenerate  into  something  not 
better  than  tares,  whose  fruit  is  poisonous.  The  children  cf 
the  kingdom  become  too  conscious  of  being  the  wheat,  boast 
of  their  purity,  thank  God  they  are  better  than  others,  and  by 
doing  so  make  themselves  worse,  banish  from  their  hearts  the 
spirit  of  Christ,  and  bring  on  their  souls  the  curse  of  im- 
poverishment and  barrenness.  How  small  the  harm  done  by 
the  mere  juxtaposition  of  the  tares  to  that  which  self-righteous 
zealots  thus  inflict  upon  themselves ! 

For  such  reasons  as  these  ought  the  tares  to  be  borne  with 
even  when  there  is  no  room  for  doubt  as  to  their  being  tares, — 
which  is  the  case  supposed  in  the  parable.  It  is  evident  that 
from  the  injunction  to  practise  tolerance  even  in  such  a  case 
an  argument  d  fortiori  may  be  drawn  in  favour  of  the  tolera- 
tion of  plants  whose  character  is  doubtful.  There  is  an  addi- 
tional reason  for  tolerance  in  such  a  case — viz.  that  the  wheat 
may  be  pulled  up  not  along  with  but  instead  of  the  tares ; 
that  being  mistaken  for  a  noxious  plant  which  is  in  reality  a 
stalk  of  genuine  grain.  This  danger  is  not  imaginary ;  the 
mistake  has  often  happened,  and  it  may  often  happen  again. 
There  is  a  constant  risk  of  committing  the  mistake  arising 
out  of  this  circumstance,  that  every  new  visitation  of  God  in 
His  grace  to  His  Church  is  apt,  when  new,  to  appear  anything 
but  a  good  gift  to  those  familiar  with  the  grace  of  the  king- 
dom under  its  old  forms.  "  Every  new  thing,"  it  has  been 
well  said,  "which  appears  in  the  life  of  the  Spirit,  every 
thought  which  moves  the  world  for  the  first  time,  looks  dan- 
gerous ;  one  knows  not  what  to  make  of  it,  and  is  troubled. 
Even  Christ  with  His  apostles  appeared  to  the  Jews  and 
heathens  as  an  impious  rebel  against  Divine  and  human 
right." 1  For  this  reason  we  should  be  slow  to  suspect  new 
things  and  in  no  haste  to  judge  them.  "Judge  nothing  before 
the  time," — allow  it  to  develop  itself,  and  to  reveal  its  charac- 
ter j  and  if  it  turn  out  to  be  tares,  it  will  be  time  enough  then 
1  Arndt,  '  Die  Gleichnissreden  Jesu  Christi.'  ii.  204. 


62  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  i. 

to  consider  what  is  to  be  done  with  it.  This  seems  so  obvious 
a  dictate  of  reason,  that  those  who  act  otherwise  may  be 
suspected  of  being  actuated  by  by-end?,  or  even  of  being 
themselves  tares ;  for  there  is  truth  in  the  shrewd  observation 
of  Bengel,  "  Often  tares  pass  themselves  off  as  wheat,  end 
endeavour  to  eradicate  wheat  as  if  they  were  tares." l  At  the 
least  they  are  chargeable  with  great  folly ;  for  who  that  ?s 
wise  would  act  like  those  empirics  "  that  would  cut  off  a 
man's  head  if  they  see  but  a  wart  upon  his  cheek,  or  a  dimple 
upon  his  chin,  or  any  line  in  his  face  to  distinguish  him  from 
another  man."  2 

To  these  arguments  in  favour  of  a  policy  of  patience 
towards  evils  prevalent  in  the  visible  Church  on  earth,  must 
be  added  one  that  will  carry  more  weight  with  all  true  Chris- 
tians than  all  the  rest,  viz.  the  example  of  Christ.  He  who 
spake  this  parable,  Himself  complied  with  its  teaching,  and 
took  patiently  the  marring  of  His  work  as  the  Founder  of  the 
kingdom  by  Satanic  influences ;  of  which  we  have  a  witness 
in  His  behaviour  towards  the  counterfeit  disciple  Judas,  whom 
He  bore  with  meekly  till  the  hour  came  when  He  was  ready 
as  a  grain  of  wheat  to  fall  into  the  ground  and  die.  How 
significant  in  connection  with  this  patient  bearing  of  our  Lord 
the  name  which  He  gives  Himself  in  the  interpretation  of  our 
parable.  "  He  that  soweth  the  good  seed  is  the  Son  of  man?* 
It  is  the  name  we  all  know  and  value  so  much  as  the  symbol 
and  pledge  of  Christ's  meekness  and  of  His  sympathy  with 
men,  the  name  appropriate  to  His  state  of  humiliation  and  to 
His  work  as  the  Saviour  of  the  lost.  The  use  of  the  name 
here  suggests  an  argument  in  support  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
parable  to  this  effect :  "  I,  the  Son  of  man,  find  an  enemy 
busy  sowing  bad  seed  in  the  field  where  I  have  sown  the  good 
seed.  It  is  saddening  and  disappointing,  but  I  know  it  will 
be,  and  I  am  content  that  it  should  be,  till  the  end.  When 
the  end  comes,  then  the  Son  of  man,  who  is  now  humbled  by 
the  counterworking  of  the  evil  one,  will  be  glorified  by  being 
placed  at  the  head  of  a  kingdom  wherein  shall  be  none  that 

1  "  Saepe  et  pro  tritico  se  venditant,  et  triticum  tanquam  zizania  eradicare 
conantur." — Gnomon,  in  loc. 

*  Jeremy  Taylor,  '  Epistle  Dedicatory  to  the  Liberty  of  Prophesying.' 

•  Matt.  xiii.  37. 


ch.  ii.]         The  Tares  and  the  Drag-Net.  6$ 

offend  or  that  commit  iniquity.  Be  ye  like  Me  in  this  :  beal 
patiently  the  mixture  of  evil  with  the  good  in  the  kingdom, 
and  the  obscuration  thence  arising  to  the  children  of  the 
kingdom  from  the  difficulty  of  knowing  who  are  such  indeed. 
The  time  will  come  when  ye  shall  at  length  along  with  Me 
shine  out  as  the  sun  shines  out  from  behind  a  cloud1  in  the 
kingdom  of  your  Father."  How  happy  for  the  Church  if  all 
the  children  of  the  kingdom  felt  the  power  of  this  appeal  1 
But,  alas  !  it  is  hard  to  imitate  the  patience  of  Christ  1  Need 
we  wonder  at  the  impatience  of  many  young  Christians,  who 
are  naturally  prone  to  severity,  and  even  of  not  a  few  old 
ones,  in  whom  patience  might  have  been  expected  to  have 
had  its  perfect  work,  when  we  think  of  the  immense  contrast 
between  Jesus  and  His  contemporary  and  forerunner  John  in 
this  respect  ?  Jesus  is  content  that  good  and  evil  should  grow 
together  during  the  long  course  of  development  through  which 
He  knows  His  kingdom  has  to  pass.  John  demands  an 
instant  severance  of  good  from  evil,  of  wheat  from  chaff,  and 
conceives  of  Messiah  as  coming  with  a  fan  in  His  hand  for 
this  judicial  purpose,  and  on  finding  that  He  has  come  with- 
out the  fan,  sends  to  Him  to  ask  the  doubting  question,  "Art 
thou  He  that  should  come,  or  do  we  look  for  another  ? "  a 

The  Drag-Net. 

Having  discussed  at  such  length  the  parable  of  the  Tares, 
a  very  few  sentences  will  suffice  to  complete  the  exposition  of 
the  kindred  parable  of  the  Net,  which  is  as  follows : 

Again,  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  unto  a  net,  that  was  cast  into  the  sea, 
and  gathered  of  every  kind;  which,  when  it  was  filed,  they  drew 

1  lic\(ip\pov<jiv  <I»c  rb  »J\ioc  (v.  43).  Calvin  has  a  fine  thought  here  :  M  Nee 
dubium  est  quin  ad  locum  Danielis  respexerit  quo  magis  ad  vivum  afficeret 
auditores :  acsi  dixisset,  Prophetam  ubi  de  futuro  splendore  concionatur, 
simul  notare  temporalem  caliginem;  ideoque  ut  locus  detur  vaticinio 
patienter  ferendam  esse  mixturam  quas  electos  Dei  reprobis  ad  tempus 
involvit." — 'Comment,  in  Harmoniam  Evang.' 

The  Jews  had  a  doctrine  concerning  the  shining  bodies  of  the  righteous 
in  the  life  to  come.  Vide  on  this  Langen,  '  Judenthum  in  Palastina  zur 
Zeit  Christi,'  p.  507,  where  reference  is  made  to  our  parable,  as  also  to 
Paul's  doctrine  in  1  Cor.  xv.  But  in  the  parable  the  glory  is  ethical,  being 
the  shining  forth  of  the  true  character  of  the  righteous,  obscured  in  this 
world  by  their  being  mixed  with  counterfeits.  2  Matt  xi.  3. 


64  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  i. 

upon  the  beach  ;  and  they  sat  down  and  gathered  the  good  into  vessels, 
but  cast  the  bad1  away.  So  shall  it  be  at  the  end  of  the  world:  the 
angels  shall  come  forth  and  sever  the  wicked  from  among  the  just,  and 
shall  cast  them  into  the  furnace  of  fire  :  there  shall  be  wailing  and 
gnashing  of  teeth. — MATTH.  xiii.  47_S°« 

After  what  has  been  said  it  is  unnecessary  to  discuss  the 
debated  question  whether  the  mixture  of  good  and  evil  spoken 
of  in  this  parable  be  within  or  without  the  kingdom.  No  one 
convinced  by  the  reasoning  whereby  we  have  attempted  to 
show  that  the  mixture  is  within  in  the  case  of  the  parable  of 
the  Tares,  will  think  it  worth  while  to  contend  for  the  thesis 
that  it  is  without  in  the  case  of  the  parable  of  the  Net.  To 
show  how  pointless  and  inapposite  to  the  affairs  of  the  king- 
dom the  parable  becomes  in  the  hands  of  those  who  maintain 
that  position,  nothing  more  is  needed  than  to  allow  one  of  its 
most  strenuous  recent  advocates  to  state  it  in  his  own  words. 
"  The  net  is  not  the  visible  Church  in  the  world,  and  the  fishes 
good  and  bad  within  it  do  not  represent  the  true  and  false 
members  of  the  Church.  The  sea  is  the  world.  The  net, 
almost  or  altogether  invisible  at  first  to  those  whom  it  sur- 
rounds, is  that  unseen  bond  which  by  an  invisible  ministry  is 
stretched  over  the  living,  drawing  them  gradually,  secretly, 
surely,  towards  the  boundary  of  this  life,  and  over  it  into 
another.  As  each  portion  or  generation  of  the  human  race 
are  drawn  from  their  element  in  this  world,  ministering  spirits, 
on  the  lip  of  Eternity  that  lies  nearest  Time,  receive  them, 
and  separate  the  good  from  the  evil." %  A  very  graphic  and 
solemn  representation,  but  what  has  it  to  do  specially  with 
the  kingdom  of  God  ?  The  process  described,  the  drawing 
of  human  beings  out  of  the  sea  of  Time  to  the  shore  of 
Eternity,  goes  on  all  the  world  over,  in  pagan  as  well  as  in 
Christian  lands.  Doubtless  the  parable  contains  the  important 
doctrine  of  an  Eternal  Judgment, — the  only  doctrine  which 
on  this  view  it  teaches.  But  that  doctrine  is  not  a  specific 
truth  of  the  kingdom  of  God ;  it  is  a  doctrine  of  natural 
religion,  and  as  such  was  taught  in  the  religions  of  Egypt, 

1  ra  aaitpd:  literally,  putrid;  more  generally,  •worthless,  useless  for 
food :  "  aairpd.  sunt  nugamenta  et  quisquilise  piscium,  quod  genus  ut  servatw 
indignura  videmus  a  piscatoribus  abjici." — Grotius, '  Annotationes  in  Nov. 
TesU'  *  Arnot, '  The  Parables  of  our  Lord,'  p.  17a 


ch.  ii.]         The  Tares  and  the  Drag-Net.  65 

Persia,  and  Greece.  To  make  it  a  specific  doctrine  of  the 
kingdom  it  would  be  necessary  to  point  out  the  principle  on 
which  the  final  separation  takes  place, — as  is  done,  for 
example,  in  the  parabolic  representation  of  the  last  judgment 
in  the  twenty-fifth  chapter  of  Matthew,  where  men's  eternal 
destiny  is  made  to  turn  on  the  way  in  which  they  treat  Christ, 
in  the  person  of  His  representatives,  the  poor  and  needy. 
But  the  parable  now  under  consideration  enunciates  no 
specifically  Christian  principle  of  judgment, — no  principle  of 
judgment  at  all,  indeed,  beyond  the  very  general  one  that 
men  shall  be  disposed  of  according  to  their  moral  characters. 
The  parable,  therefore,  becomes  one  relating  to  the  kingdom 
only  when  it  is  assumed  that  the  casting  of  the  net  has 
reference  to  the  work  of  the  kingdom,  and  the  goodness  and 
badness  of  the  fish  to  the  moral  qualities  of  those  who  are  the 
subjects  of  that  work. 

This  parable  asserts  even  more  emphatically  than  that  ol 
the  tares  that  not  now  but  at  the  end  of  the  world  is  the  time 
for  separation  of  the  good  and  evil  mixed  together  in  the 
kingdom.  It  so  puts  the  matter  that  separation  is  seen  to  be 
not  merely  undesirable  but  impossible ;  for  till  the  fish  are 
landed  it  cannot  be  known  which  are  good  and  which  are 
worthless.  The  graphic  representation  has  a  manifest 
tendency  to  act  as  a  wholesome  sedative  on  impatience  and 
anxiety.  Why  fret  over  a  mixture  of  the  evil  with  the  good, 
which  is  pronounced  on  authority  to  be  in  present  circum- 
stances inevitable  in  some  form,  if  not  in  the  form  of  open 
scandal,  at  least  in  the  form  of  hypocritical  religious  profession 
on  the  part  of  men  who  have  a  form  of  godliness  without  the 
power  ?  We  might  be  better  employed  than  in  fretting  over 
what  cannot  be  helped — viz.  in  casting  a  net  and  in  striving 
to  bring  as  many  as  possible  within  the  kingdom.  That  is 
the  business  of  the  present  hour ;  not  to  judge  or  sift,  but  to 
catch  fish,  using  a  large  net  and  giving  it  as  wide  a  sweep  as 
possible.  The  proportion  of  good  fish  to  bad  may  be  very 
small, — it  was  so  in  Christ's  own  experience ;  for  of  that  crowd 
on  the  shore  which  listened  to  His  parables,  and  which 
represented  the  result  of  His  past  labours,  all  but  a  few,  when 
the  day  of  crisis  and  sifting  came,  "  went  back,  and  walked  no 
more  with  Him."     It  is  a  sad  spectacle,  and  all  the  more  that 

F 


66  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  l 

it  may  be  taken  not  as  an  isolated  but  almost  as  a  typical 
case ;  nevertheless,  the  duty  of  Christians  is  plain.  It  is  not 
to  ask  wistfully  shall  many  or  few  be  saved,  but  to  strive  with 
might  and  main  to  bring  into  the  Church  as  many  as  possible 
of  such  as  are  at  least  in  the  way  of  being  saved.1  In  this 
connection  it  is  important  to  note  the  kind  of  net  referred  to 
in  the  parable.  It  is  a  seine-net 2  of  vast  length,  such  as  men 
use  in  the  sea  where  there  is  ample  scope  for  a  wide  sweep 
with  a  view  to  a  great  haul.  The  word  is  aptly  chosen  so  as 
to  be  in  congruity  with  the  Catholic  aim  and  hopeful  spirit  of 
Christianity,  which  is  a  religion  for  the  world,  and  the  Author 
of  which  gave  it  as  His  last  injunction  to  those  whom  He  had 
chosen  to  be  fishers  of  men :  "  Go  ye  into  all  the  world,  and 
preach  the  gospel  to  every  creature."  8 

Of  the  final  separation  so  solemnly  asserted  and  described 
in  those  two  parables  we  do  not  here  speak.  We  close  with 
a  single  word  concerning  a  notion  of  sceptical  critics  as  to  the 
alleged  ecclesiastical  party  tendencies  of  the  parables,  which 
scarce  deserves  notice  save  for  the  great  names  with  which  it 
is  associated.  The  Tubingen  school,  who  find  tendency  every- 
where in  the  New  Testament,  will  have  it  that  traces  of  the 
great  struggle  between  Pauline  and  Antipauline  views  of 
Christianity  are  clearly  discernible  here.  The  parable  of  the 
Tares  is  directed  against  Paul,  who  is  the  enemy  that  came  by 
night  and  sowed  bad  seed  in  the  field.*  On  the  other  hand, 
the  parable  of  the  Net  is  Propauline ;  the  capacious  net 
taking  in  all  sorts  of  fish  being  intended  as  a  justification  for 
Paul's  two-leaved  door  of  universalism  thrown  wide  open  to 
admit  all  comers.6  Surely  this  is  criticism  gone  mad.  The 
two  parables  are  in  perfect  accord,  and  they  both  bear  the 
stamp  of  one  mind, — the  mind  of  Him  who  soared  above  petty 
party  strifes  and  dwelt  habitually  in  the  serene   region  of 

1  Acts  ii.  47.  The  Lord  added  daily  to  the  community  of  Christians 
(tnl  to  avr6)  such  as  were  being  saved  {roi>c  au^o/iivovs). 

2  Zayrjvti  (v.  47).  Vide  Trench's  note  on  this  word  in  his  work  on  the 
Parables,  p.  140. 

8  Mark  xvi.  15. 

4  So  Volkmar  and  Hilgenfeld,  also  Renan  (in  '  Les  Evangiles,'  p.  273). 
Keim  refers  to  this  opinion  with  disapproval,  vide  'Jesu  von  Nazara,* 
ii.  449- 

•  Renan,  *  Les  Evangiles,'  p.  201* 


ch.  ii.]         The   Tares  and  the  Drag-Net.  67 

Divine  wisdom  and  charity.  The  spirit  of  the  two  parables  is 
the  same, — it  is  the  spirit  of  universalism,  not  in  the  contro- 
versial sense,  but  in  the  sense  in  which  we  ascribe  that 
attribute  to  all  Christ's  teaching.  The  Kingdom  of  God  as 
Jesus  preached  it  was  a  kingdom  whose  blessings  were  de- 
signed for  the  whole  human  race.  In  perfect  accord  with  the 
whole  drift  of  His  teaching  is  the  doctrine  contained  in  these 
parables.  The  field  is  the  world,  the  net  is  cast  into  the  sea, 
and  the  net  itself  is  the  largest  possible,  to  be  employed  for  the 
purposes  of  a  gracious  economy  by  men  animated  by  Christ's 
own  catholic  spirit 


CHAPTER   III. 

THE  TREASURE  AND  THE   PEARL | 
OR,  THE   KINGDOM   OF  GOD  THE   SUMMUM   BONUM. 

THESE  two  parables  constitute  together  but  one  text,  and 
teach  the  same  general  lesson,  namely,  the  incomparable 
worth  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  They  show  us  how  the  kingdom 
ought  to  be  esteemed,  in  whatever  esteem  it  may  in  fact  be 
held.  They  are  thus  an  important  supplement  to  the  parable 
of  the  Sower.  That  parable  teaches  that  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  far  enough  from  being  the  chief  good  to  many.  To 
some  it  is  simply  nothing  at  all,  the  word  of  the  kingdom 
awakening  no  interest  whatever  in  their  minds  ;  to  others  it  is 
but  the  occasion  of  a  short-lived  excitement ;  to  a  third  class 
it  is  only  one  of  many  objects  of  desire ;  only  to  a  chosen  few 
is  it  the  first  thing  worthy  to  be  loved  above  all  things,  with 
pure,  undivided,  devoted  heart.  The  two  parables  now  to  be 
considered  teach  us  that  the  kingdom  deserves  to  be  so  leved 
by  all.  It  is  a  treasure  of  such  value  that  all  other  possessions 
may  reasonably  be  given  in  exchange  for  it ;  a  pearl  of  such 
excellence  that  he  who  sells  all  his  property  in  order  to  obtain 
it  may  not  justly  be  accounted  a  fool.  How  quietly  and 
simply  is  this  momentous  truth  insinuated  in  those  two  little 
similitudes  I  One  is  tempted  to  say  that  so  important  a 
doctrine  should  have  been  taught  with  more  emphasis  and  at 
greater  length.  We  might  have  said  this  with  some  show  of 
reason  had  these  two  sayings  been  the  only  texts  in  the 
recorded  teaching  of  Christ  containing  the  doctrine  in  question. 
But  they  are  not ;  they  are  simply  the  only  recorded  instances 
in  which  the  Great  Teacher  set  forth  that  doctrine  in  parabolic 
form.     The  truth  that  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  the  summum 


ch.  in.]         The    Treasure  and  the  Pearl,  69 

bonurn  to  which  everything  else  must  be  subordinated,  and  if 
necessary  sacrificed,  occupied  the  foremost  place  in  His 
doctrinal  system.  He  taught  that  truth  on  many  occasions, 
to  many  persons,  to  individual  followers,  to  the  collective 
body  of  disciples,  to  the  multitude  at  large,  and  often  in  most 
startling  terms.  "  Let  the  dead  bury  their  dead,  but  go  thou 
and  preach  the  kingdom  of  God."1  "If  thou  wilt  be  perfect, 
go  and  sell  that  thou  hast,  and  give  to  the  poor,  and  thou  shalt 
have  treasure  in  heaven,  and  come  and  follow  Me."2  "  If  any 
man  will  come  after  Me,  let  him  deny  himself,  and  take  up 
his  cross,  and  follow  Me."8  "  If  any  man  come  to  Me,  and 
hate  not  his  father  and  mother  and  wife  and  children  and 
brethren  and  sisters,  yea,  and  his  own  life  also,  he  cannot  be 
My  disciple."*  What  are  these,  and  many  other  kindred 
sayings,  but  an  emphatic  proclamation  of  the  truth  taught  in 
our  parables  that  the  Kingdom  of  heaven  or  its  King  (the  two 
are  practically  one)  is  entitled  to  the  first  place  in  our  regard, 
as  at  once  man's  chief  good  and  chief  end  ? 

When  and  to  whom  these  parables  were  spoken  cannot 
with  perfect  certainty  be  decided.  From  the  manner  in  which 
they  are  recorded  by  the  Evangelist,  there  is,  of  course,  a 
presumption  in  favour  of  the  view  that  they  were  uttered  at 
the  same  time  as  the  preceding  four,  but  to  the  disciples,  after 
the  multitude  to  which  the  parable  of  the  Sower  was  addressed 
had  been  dismissed.  But  it  is  quite  possible  that  they  be- 
longed originally  to  another  connection,  and  formed  part  of  a 
discourse  having  for  its  aim  to  enforce  the  precept,  "  Seek  ye 
first  the  kingdom  of  God."  The  abrupt  and  disconnected 
way  in  which,  according  to  the  reading  approved  by  critics, 
the  former  of  the  two  is  introduced,  seems  to  favour  this  view. 
"The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  unto  a  treasure  hid  in  a 
field  ;  "  so,  without  any  mediating  word  like  the  iraXiv  in  the 
received  text,  does  the  narrative  pass  from  the  interpretation 
of  the  parable  of  the  Tares  to  the  wholly  dissimilar  pirable  of 
the  Hidden  Treasure,  suggesting  the  idea  of  a  water-worn 
pebble  which  has  been  rolled  away  by  the  stream  from  its 
original  bed.  And  as  the  parable  might  have  been  uttered 
on  a  different  occasion,  so  it  might  have  been  addressed  to  a 

1  Luke  ix.  60.  *  Matt.  xix.  21. 

•  Matt.  xvi.  24.  *  Luke  xiv.  26. 


70  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  i. 

different  audience  than  Matthew's  narrative  seems  to  imply  ; 
not  to  the  discLples,  but  to  a  miscellaneous  group  of  hearers 
like  that  which  listened  to  the  parable  of  the  Sower.  Such  a 
view,  indeed,  would  be  inadmissible  if  we  could  attach  as 
much  importance  as  Origen  did  to  the  circumstance  that  the 
last  three  parables  in  the  group  of  seven  are  not  called 
parables.1  That  Father,  in  his  commentary  on  the  passage, 
suggests  as  the  reason  of  the  fact  stated  that  the  last  three 
were  spoken  to  the  disciples,  not  to  the  multitude  ;  proceed- 
ing on  the  assumption  that  parables  were  meant  exclusively 
for  those  without,  and  therefore  holding  that  we  ought  not  to 
call  the  three  last  figurative  representatives  of  the  Divine 
kingdom  parables,  but  similitudes.2  If  this  opinion  were 
correct,  we  might  infer,  from  the  simple  fact  that  the  name 
parable  is  not  applied  to  these  similitudes,  that  they  were 
spoken  not  to  a  miscellaneous  audience,  but  to  a  closer  circle 
of  the  disciples.  But  it  is  not  true  that  parables  were  spoken 
to  the  multitude  alone,  and  therefore  the  non-use  of  the  name 
in  the  case  of  the  last  three  parables  can  have  no  such  sig- 
nificance as  Origen  alleges.  It  is  indeed  incredible  that  the 
Evangelist  can  have  seriously  meant  to  withhold  the  name 
from  these  parables  as  inapplicable,  when  he  had  previously 
applied  it  to  the  equally  brief  similitudes  of  the  Mustard  Seed 
and  the  Leaven.  The  omission  of  the  name  must  be  regarded 
as  purely  accidental. 

We  proceed  to  the  consideration  of  our  two  parables — 
those  of  the  Treasure  and  the  Pearl,  placing  them  as  of 
kindred  significance  side  by  side,  and  treating  them  in  the 
first  place  as  one  text  in  the  exposition  of  the  great  truth 
which  they  teach  in  common,  reserving  for  the  close  observ- 
ations on  the  points  in  which  they  differ.8 

The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  unto  a  treasure  hid  in  the  feld*  which  a 
man  having  found  hid,  and  in  his  joy  6  he  goeth  and  selleth  all  that 
he  hath,  and  buyeth  that  field. 

1  They  are  introduced  with  opola  iorlv.  •  opoi&oiic  from  c^oia. 

*  The  same  method  of  treatment  is  adopted  by  Greswell  and  Arndt. 

4  lv  rw  dypy  ;  "  in  the  field  in  which  it  lies"  (Meyer).  "The  field  in 
which  the  finder  was  working"  (Greswell).  "The  article  implies  that  in 
the  mind  of  hearers  the  idea  of  a  hidden  treasure  would  be  associated 
with  that  of  a  field  as  the  usual  hiding-place  "  (Goebel). 

*  The  airov  is  genit.  subj.,  not  obj.    So  Meyer.     Vide  also  Trench. 


ch.  in.]         The  Treasure  and  the  Pearl,  71 

Again,  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  unto  a  merchantman  •  seeking  goodly 
pearls,  who  when  he  had  found  one  pearl  of  great  price  went  and 
sold  all  that  he  had,  and  bought  it. — Matt.  xiii.  44 — 46. 

The  two  emblems  here  employed  by  Jesus  were  fitly  chosen 
to  impress  an  ancient  Eastern  audience,  and  to  serve  in  their 
case  the  purpose  intended — that  of  representing  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  as  the  Absolute  Good,  and  as  such  worthy  that  all 
should  be  given  in  exchange  for  it.  In  our  day  and  land 
such  emblems  would  be  less  appropriate.  The  finding  of  a 
treasure  hid  in  a  field  is  so  rare  an  occurrence  in  modern 
European  experience  that  to  employ  it  as  a  parabolic  repre- 
sentation of  the  finding  of  the  Divine  kingdom  would  be  to 
commit  the  mistake  of  making  that  which  ought  to  be  an 
object  of  desire  and  hope  to  all  appear  so  improbable  as  to  be 
practically  unattainable.  It  was  otherwise  in  the  age  and 
country  when  and  where  the  parable  was  spoken.  Then  to 
hide  treasure  in  the  earth,  in  sepulchres,  or  any  other  place 
where  the  owners  deemed  their  property  would  be  secure,  was 
a  not  uncommon  practice  ;  and  to  find  such  a  hidden  treasure 
was  by  no  means  an  unexampled  felicity.2  Equally  apt  to 
the  circumstances  of  the  time  is  the  emblem  employed  in  the 
second  parable.  In  our  day  a  pearl  could  not  properly  be 
selected  as  the  fittest  representative  of  the  highest  good. 
The  diamond  is  our  most  precious  stone.  But  in  ancient 
times  the  diamond,  though  not  unknown,  and  though  highly 
valued,  was  too  rare  to  be  a  suitable  emblem  of  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  in  a  popular  discourse.  The  pearl  was  the  more 
appropriate  object  for  such  a  purpose,  because  it  was  to  the 
ancients  what  the  diamond  is  to  us — well  known,  highly 
prized,  and,  when  of  large  size  and  pure  quality,  exceeding 
costly.     The  romantic  theory  current  in  ancient  times  respect- 

1  AvOpuirtp  Ip-iropy.  The  idea  of  travelling  is  involved  in  the  term 
IfiTTopog.  Bengel  defines  ipiropoe  as  one  "  qui  mercaturae  causa  peregrinatur 
et  navigat."  Greswell  says,  "  His  proper  character  is  that  of  a  collector 
of  pearls,  and  probably  of  a  trader  in  them,  though  this  is  no  necessary 
supposition  "  (voL  ii.  p.  226).     For  additional  remarks  see  p.  88. 

*  On  this  view  that  the  treasure  was  hidden  needs  no  special  explana- 
tion. A  hid  treasure  was  simply  in  those  days  a  natural  emblem  of  a 
thing  of  great  value.  Goebel  thinks  the  kingdom  is  compared  to  a  hid 
treasure,  to  describe  its  character  in  opposition  to  the  outward  and 
sensuous  ideas  oi  the  kingdom  current  among  the  Jews. 


fi  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  l 

ing  the  origin  of  pearls  served  to  enhance  their  fitness  to  body 
forth  the  things  of  the  kingdom.  It  was  believed  that  the 
pearl  was  formed  by  the  dew  of  heaven  entering  into  the 
shell  wherein  it  was  found,  the  quality  and  form  of  the  pearl 
depending  on  the  purity  of  the  dew,  the  state  of  the  atmo- 
sphere, and  even  the  hour  of  the  day  at  the  time  of  its  con- 
ception.1 There  is  reason  to  think  that  the  true  cause  of 
pearl  formation  is  of  a  much  more  prosaic  character  ;  the 
probable  account  offered  by  modern  science  being  that  pearls 
are  the  result  of  a  process  of  animal  secretion  provoked  by 
the  intrusion  of  a  foreign  substance,  such  as  a  grain  of  sand, 
within  the  shell,  the  fish  covering  the  alien  particle  with  pearly 
matter  to  protect  itself  from  irritation.  But  the  ancient  theory, 
however  baseless,  is  still  full  of  interest  as  serving  to  show 
the  esteem  in  which  pearls  were  held.  Worthless  as  science, 
it  is  valuable  as  poetry,  as  a  standing  evidence  that  the  pearl 
was  to  the  ancients  an  object  of  admiration,  wonder,  almost 
of  worship  ;  for  it  is  only  noble,  precious,  worshipful  things 
that  the  human  mind  seeks  to  glorify  by  bringing  into  play 
the  resources  of  its  imagination. 

Here  then  were  two  emblems  fitly  chosen  to  set  before  an 
ancient  Jewish  audience  the  absolute  worth  of  the  Divine 
kingdom, — a  hidden  treasure,  and  a  very  precious  pearl,  the 
best  of  a  precious  kind.  The  former  of  the  two  is  indeed  not 
so  apparently  apt  to  the  purpose,  as  a  treasure  may  be  great 
or  small,  and  it  is  not  said  that  the  treasure  was  a  great  one. 
But  that  is  only  not  said  because  it  is  taken  for  granted. 
The  presumption  is  that  a  hidden  treasure  will  be  of  great 
value  —  something  worth  hiding,  and  also  worth  finding. 
That  the  treasure  in  the  parable  was  of  great  value  is  further 
implied  in  the  joy  of  the  finder.  He  sees  at  a  glance  the  vast 
extent  of  his  treasure-trove,  and  his  cunning  in  hiding  it,  and 
his  joy  in  going  to  take  steps  towards  securing  it  for  himself, 
unerringly  reveal  the  estimate  he  has  formed.  The  second  of 
the  two  emblems  is  self-evidently  fitly  chosen.  The  best  and 
fciost  precious  of  all  existing  pearls  signified  an  immense, 
almost  fabulous  sum  of  money.  The  two  famous  pearls  pos- 
sessed by  Cleopatra,  according  to  Pliny  the  largest  known, 

1  For  an  account  of  the  opinions  of  the  ancients  on  the  origin  of  pearls,  vid§ 
Origen's  commentary  on  the  parable. 


ch.  in.]         The  Treasure  and  the  Pearl.  73 

were  valued  each  at  about  ^80,000  in  our  money.  Surely  a 
sum  fit  to  represent  infinite  wealth  to  the  popular  mind, 
though  the  profligate  Queen  of  Egypt  could  afford  to  drink 
one  of  the  pearls  dissolved  in  a  menstruum  at  a  supper  given 
to  her  lover ! x 

The  comparisons  of  our  parables,  while  naturally  suggesting 
the  thought  that  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  the  summum  bonum, 
at  the  same  time  felicitously  demonstrate  the  reasonableness 
of  the  demand  that  all  be  sacrificed  for  the  kingdom.  The 
conduct  of  the  actors  in  the  two  parables  was  thoroughly 
reasonable.  Both  were  gainers  by  the  transaction  of  selling 
their  all  for  the  sake  of  obtaining  the  precious  object.  The 
buyer  of  the  field  containing  the  hid  treasure  was  manifestly 
a  gainer ;  for  the  field  itself,  apart  from  the  treasure,  assuming 
that  the  bargain  between  him  and  the  seller  was  a  fair  one, 
was  a  full  equivalent  for  the  whole  of  his  property  which  he 
realised  in  order  to  purchase  it.  The  hidden  treasure,  whose 
existence  was  unknown  to  the  seller,  and  therefore  not  taken 
into  account,  he  had  into  the  bargain.  Provided  the  purchase 
of  the  field  made  his  right  to  the  treasure-trove  secure?  loss  in 
that  transaction  was  impossible.  The  buyer  of  the  high- 
priced  pearl  was  likewise  a  gainer  from  a  mercantile  point  of 
view.  It  might  indeed  seem  a  precarious  proceeding  to  put 
all  one's  property  (not  merely  all  his  other  jewels,  but  all  he 
had  8 )  into  one  single  article,  however  precious.  But  the  very 
preciousness  of  that  one  article  implies  that  pearls  of  excellent 
quality  were  much  in  demand,  so  that  a  purchaser  might 
safely  be  counted  on.  The  merchantman  was  sure  of  his 
money  whenever  he  wished  to  realise,  and  in  all  probability 
would  receive  for  the  pearl  a  sum  far  exceeding  what  he  had 

1  For  numerous  particulars  respecting  the  value  of  pearls  in  ancient 
times,  consult  Greswell's  note  in  his  work  on  the  Parables,  vol.  ii.  p.  220. 

*  That  it  did  so  seems  implied  in  the  incident  recorded  of  R.  Emi, 
referred  to  by  Meyer  in  his  commentary,  that  he  bought  a  rented  field  in 
which  he  had  found  a  treasure,  "ut  pleno  jure  thesaurum  possideret 
omnemque  litium  occasionem  praecideret."  Of  the  treasure-finder,  Alford 
remarks,  u  he  goes,  and  selling  all  he  has,  buys  the  field,  thus  (by  the 
Jewish  law)  becoming  the  possessor  also  of  the  treasure." 

*  O&k  tlwtv  5$r»  iri.irpa.Ki  iravrai;  oiOf  il\tv'  oh  y&Q  ftSvovC,  oDc  6  JijrtSv  eaXovC 
ftapyapirae  Iwvtjrat,  irkirpantv,  &XK&  cat  ndvra  ttaa  rtxlv'  Origen, '  Comment, 
in  Evangelium  Matth.' 


74  TJie  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ.    £bqok  f. 

paid  for  it ;  for  he  had  gone  to  a  far-off  land  to  buy  it  from 
the  pearl-fisher,  at  a  moderate  though  great  cost,  and  had 
brought  it,  let  us  say,  from  India *  to  the  Western  centres  of 
wealth,  where  rich  men  abounded  and  luxury  prevailed.  In 
saying  this  we  go  upon  the  assumption  that  the  purchaser  of 
the  pearl  in  the  parable  was  really  a  merchant.  If  he  was  no 
merchant,  but  only  a  pearl-fancier  and  collector,  who  went  to 
the  ends  of  the  earth  in  quest  of  the  rarest  samples,  and 
having  found  one  of  incomparable  excellence,  hesitated  not, 
in  his  passion  for  such  valuables,  to  give  all  that  he  had  that 
he  might  become  its  possessor,  the  case  is  altogether  different. 
He  was  then  a  fool  from  the  mercantile  point  of  view  ;  if  he 
was  a  gainer  at  all,  it  was  certainly  not  in  money,  but  in  the 
gratification  of  aesthetic  taste  and  romantic  desire.  We  shall 
not  now  decide  peremptorily  between  these  two  views  of  the 
pearl-collector's  conduct,  for  in  either  aspect  it  might  serve  as 
a  parable  of  the  kingdom.  He  who  gives  all  for  the  kingdom 
of  God  is  truly  wise,  but  in  the  world's  view  he  is  a  fool ;  and 
of  his  folly  a  man  with  a  craze  for  collecting  pearls  for  the 
bare  pleasure  of  possessing  them  were  no  unapt  emblem. 

If  now  men  could  only  be  convinced  that  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  like  the  treasure  hid  in  the  field  and  the  precious 
pearl,  and  that  in  giving  up  all  for  its  sake  they  were  only 
acting  as  the  buyers  of  the  field  and  the  pearl  acted,  all  would 
be  well.  They  would  then  go  and  do  likewise.  For  men 
never  hesitate  to  sacrifice  all  for  what  they  believe  to  be  the 
chief  good.  Devotion  all  the  world  over  is  reckless  of 
expense,  and  acts  as  if  it  reckoned  the  demand  of  the  loved 
object,  that  it  be  first  and  all  else  second,  no  grievous  com- 
mandment, but  a  perfectly  reasonable  requirement.  No 
matter  what  the  object  of  devotion  may  be,  whether  earthly 
or  heavenly,  material  or  mental,  its  language  is  that  of  the 
impassioned  lover : 

"By  night,  by  day,  afield,  at  hame, 
The  thoughts  of  thee  my  breast  inflame, 

1  The  best  pearls  were  found  there  or  in  the  Red  Sea.  On  the  localities 
where  pearls  were  found,  see  Origen,  as  above ;  also  Greswell's  note, 
already  referred  to.  Among  the  localities  is  our  own  land  or  its  environ* 
ing  sea.  Origen  says  the  second  best  were  found  here.  Acvrtpcuovm  M 
At  iv  papyapiTcue  oi  U  rov  Kard  (3ptrravLav  wxiavov  Xapfiavofiivoi. 


ch.  in.]         Ttie  Treasure  and  the  Pearl,  75 

And  aye  I  muse  and  sing  thy  name : 
I  only  live  to  love  thee." 

The  devoted  disciples  of  the  Rabbis  so  loved  the  law 
which  they  studied,  because  they  reckoned  knowledge  of  it 
the  chief  good.  Their  masters  expressed  the  sovereign 
claims  of  the  law  in  terms  not  less  severe  than  the  severest 
ever  employed  by  Jesus  to  assert  the  claims  of  the  kingdom. 
In  addressing  to  a  certain  disciple  the  apparently  harsh  in- 
junction, "  Let  the  dead  bury  their  dead,  but  go  thou  and 
preach  the  kingdom  of  God,"  our  Lord  did,  in  truth,  but 
report  a  saying  current  in  Rabbinical  circles.1  And  how 
faithfully  did  some  disciples  of  the  Rabbis  comply  with  such 
hard  requirements  in  their  pursuit  of  legal  lore!  Think 
of  the  famous  Hillel,  come  all  the  way  from  Babylon  to 
Jerusalem  to  learn  wisdom  ;  of  whom  it  is  recorded  that  he 
was  so  poor  he  could  not  pay  the  porter's  fee  to  gain 
admission  into  the  school,  and  so  was  obliged  to  listen  at 
the  window,  till  on  a  severe  winter  night  he  was  almost 
frozen  to  death,  and  had  certainly  lost  his  life  had  not  the 
darkening  of  the  window  by  his  body,  heaped  over  with 
falling  snow,  attracted  the  attention  of  those  within.2  Here 
was  one  willing  to  part  even  with  life  itself  in  his  devotion 
to  the  study  of  the  law.  And  was  not  Socrates  another  of 
kindred  spirit,  seeking  wisdom  with  pure  elevated  heart,  and 
cheerfully  subordinating  all  to  the  knowledge  of  the  true,  the 
good,  and  the  fair  1  Listen  to  his  prayer,  pagan  in  form,  but 
thoroughly  Christian  in  import :  "  O  dear  Pan  and  all  ye 
other  Gods  here !  grant  me  to  be  beautiful  within  ;  and  may 
my  external  possessions  not  be  hurtful  to  those  which  are 
internal ;  and  may  I  esteem  him  rich  who  is  wise ;  and  may 
my  treasure  be  such  as  none  can  carry  away  save  one  who  is 
of  sober  mind."8  But  we  are  under  no  necessity  to  seek 
illustrations  among  celebrities.  Multitudes  of  instances  of 
self-sacrificing  devotion  to  wisdom  as  the  chief  good  might 
be  found  among  the  ranks  of  poor  obscure  students  attending 
our  schools  of  learning,  whose  motto  is 

"To  scorn  delights  and  live  laborious  days," 

1  See  Cunningham  Geikie's  '  Life  of  Christ,'  vol.  ii.  p.  160. 

*  See  Barclay,  '  The  Talmud,'  p.  15  ;  also  Jost, '  Judenthum.' 

*  Plato,  Phaedrus,  at  the  close. 


j6  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  l 

and  who  would  gladly  part  with  their  last  ten  shillings  to 
procure  some  favourite  book,  with  whose  contents  they  had 
long  desired  to  become  acquainted. 

The  difficulty  is  to  get  men  to  see  that  the  kingdom  of 
God  is  indeed  the  siimmiim  bonum,  and  therefore  worthy  to 
be  loved  as  Hillel  loved  the  law,  and  as  Socrates  loved 
wisdom,  and  as  every  true  student  loves  knowledge.  They 
are  prone  to  ask  in  sceptical  mood,  What  is  this  kingdom  of 
heaven  that  we  should  seek  it  as  men  seek  hidden  treasure, 
or  buy  it  at  any  price  as  merchantmen  buy  costly  jewels? 
And  we  might  here  attempt  a  detailed  answer  to  their 
question ;  but  we  shall  not.  We  are  not  required  to  do  so 
as  expositors  of  the  parables ;  for  the  two  parables  under 
consideration  do  not  explain  to  us  the  nature  of  the  kingdom 
of  heaven,  or  tell  us  why  it  is  entitled  to  be  regarded  as  the 
chief  good  ;  they  simply  teach  that  it  is  entitled,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  to  be  so  regarded.  And  moreover  the  attempt  were 
va:n  ;  if  at  least  its  object  were  not  merely  to  state  truth 
already  well  enough  known  to  an  ordinarily  instructed  Chris- 
tian, but  to  produce  conviction.  For  it  is  not  man  but  the 
Spirit  of  God  that  can  make  any  one  see  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  and  its  King  in  their  peerless  beauty  and  worth,  so 
that  he  shall  be  willing  to  part  with  all  for  their  sake.  Christ 
Himself  as  a  human  teacher  could  not  achieve  such  a  result. 
The  very  parables  before  us  are  possibly  a  result  of  his 
consciousness  of  inability  to  do  so.  For  why  did  He  speak 
to  the  people  in  parables  but  because  they  seeing  saw  not ; 
because  the  things  of  the  kingdom  were  hidden  from  their 
view,  and  because  He  all  but  despaired  of  opening  their  eyes  ? 

Instead  therefore  of  repeating  common-places  of  Christian 
knowledge  in  the  vain  hope  of  communicating  spiritual  vision, 
we  prefer  to  confine  attention  to  one  point  in  which  the 
doctrine  of  these  parables  seems  inconsistent  with  one  of  the 
best  ascertained  attributes  of  the  kingdom  whose  advent 
Jesus  announced.  We  refer  to  the  attribute  implied  in  the 
title — the  kingdom  of  grace.  That  the  kingdom  of  heaven, 
as  Christ  preached  it,  was  emphatically  a  kingdom  of  grace 
as  abundantly  evident  from  the  Gospels.  It  is  implied  in  the 
fact  that  Christ  called  the  announcement  of  the  kingdom 
good  tidings.     The  proclamation  of  its  advent  was  in  His 


ch.  in. J        The  Treasure  and  the  Pearl.  77 

view  the  Gospel.  Hence  the  burthen  of  His  preaching  from 
the  beginning  of  His  ministry  was :  "  The  time  is  fulfilled, 
the  kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand ;  repent  ye  and  believe  the 
good  news." 1  The  same  truth,  that  the  kingdom  announced 
was  a  kingdom  of  grace,  is  implied  in  the  fact  that  those  who 
received  Christ's  message  were  a  glad  company,  resembling  a 
wedding-party,  while  John's  followers  resembled  a  band  of 
pilgrims  wending  their  weary  way  with  sad  looks  toward 
some  shrine  doing  penance  for  their  sins.  The  cause  of  this 
difference  was  this :  The  kingdom,  as  John  preached  it,  was 
awful  news,  a  kingdom  of  law  and  retribution  ;  while  the 
kingdom  as  Jesus  preached  it  was  good  news,  a  kingdom  of 
grace  and  of  pardon.  The  same  truth  is  further  implied  in 
the  familiar  facts  that  the  kingdom,  as  Jesus  preached  it,  was 
emphatically  a  kingdom  for  the  poor,  the  outcast,  the  morally 
degraded,  the  humble,  the  child-like :  which  is  only  to  say 
in  other  words  that  it  was  a  free  gift  of  God's  grace  to  those 
who  had  no  wealth,  no  merit,  no  consciousness  of  desert,  no 
pride  of  virtue. 

But  how  then  are  we  to  reconcile  with  this  outstanding 
attribute  of  the  kingdom  the  representations  of  the  parables, 
in  both  of  which  the  material  goods,  which  are  emblems  of 
the  kingdom,  are  represented  as  obtained  by  purchase  ?  The 
point  is  one  which  forces  itself  on  our  attention,  for  the  buying 
is  not  a  minor,  accidental,  or  insignificant  trait,  but  a  leading 
feature  in  the  parables.2  It  is  especially  noticeable  in  the 
former  of  the  two,  where  it  almost  seems  as  if  the  speaker 
gave  an  artificial  turn  to  the  story  with  express  intent  to 
introduce  the  act  of  buying.  One  is  inclined  to  ask,  Why  not 
at  once  appropriate  the  treasure  found  ;  why  that  roundabout 
process  of  buying  the  field  in  order  to  get  possession  of  the 
hidden  store  of  gold  ?  Would  not  the  direct  appropriation  of 
the  treasure  have  been  far  more  in  harmony  with  the  genius 
of  the  kingdom  as  a  kingdom  of  grace  ?  Of  course  the  reply 
which  will  be  given  to  our  query  is :  The  buying  of  the  field 

1  Mark  i.  15. 

•  Goebel  thinks  the  didactic  drift  of  the  parables  is  to  teach  the  way  in 
which  men  must  make  the  kingdom  their  own.  It  is  rather  that  they 
must  make  it  their  own  at  any  price.  It  is  worthy  of  this.  But  that  it 
has  to  be  bought  is  also  taught  by  implication. 


78  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  l 

was  necessary  to  set  the  finder  right  with  the  law.1  That 
may  be  so,  but  we  question  if  the  answer  goes  to  the  root  of 
the  matter.  For  in  the  first  place  the  process  of  buying,  if  it 
set  the  finder  right  with  the  law,  certainly  did  not  set  him 
right  with  equity :  and  therefore  it  was  not  worth  while  to 
ascribe  to  the  actor  a  conscientiousness  which  after  all  was 
formal  not  real.  Then  if,  as  we  admit,  it  was  not  necessary 
for  the  purpose  of  the  parable  to  represent  the  man  as  having 
a  regard  to  equity,  but  simply  as  determined  by  all  means  to 
obtain  the  desired  boon,  there  could  be  no  more  harm  in 
making  him  reach  his  object  by  a  direct  breach  of  equity  than 
by  an  indirect  one.  Why  could  he  not  carry  away  his  treasure- 
trove  and  say  nothing  about  it,  but  quietly  spend  it  for  his 
own  comfort  ?  Undoubtedly  the  speaker  wished  to  make  the 
treasure-finder  a  buyer,  even  when  buying  was  not  indispens- 
able in  order  to  possession  as  it  was  in  the  case  of  the  pearl- 
seeker  ;  as  if  with  express  intent  to  teach  that  in  all  cases 
there  must  be  a  buying  in  order  to  possession  of  the  kingdom 
of  heaven. 

But  how,  we  again  ask,  reconcile  this  doctrine  with  the 
nature  of  the  kingdom  as  a  kingdom  of  grace,  and  with  its 
catholicity  as  a  kingdom  offered  to  all  ?  If  the  kingdom  is  of 
grace  why  buy,  and  if  it  is  for  all  what  of  those  who  have  not 
wherewith  to  purchase  the  field  in  which  the  treasure  is  hid, 
of  whom  the  number  is  at  all  times  great  ?  The  solution  of 
the  puzzle  is  simple.  Buying,  translated  into  other  language, 
means  showing  by  action  that  we  really  do  esteem  the  king- 
dom of  God  to  be  the  chief  good ;  and  that  all  who  are  to 
receive  the  kingdom  must  do,  and  that  moreover  all,  however 
beggared  in  purye  or  character,  have  it  in  their  power  to  do. 
The  kingdom  must  be  subjectively  as  well  as  objectively  the 
summmn  bonum,  and  wherever  it  is  so,  means  will  be  found  to 
make  the  fact  evident.  That  such  subjective  appreciation 
manifested  in  action  is  quite  compatible  with  the  nature  of 
the  kingdom  may  be  proved  by  a  reference  to  the  parable  of 
the  Supper.*  There  the  highest  good  is  represented  as  eating 
bread  in  the  kingdom  of  God,  as  the  result  of  accepting  an 
invitation  to  a  feast.  That  the  kingdom  is  a  gift  of  grace 
could  not  be  more  clearly  taught  than  by  such  a  form  of 
1  Vide  on  this  point  note  on  p.  73.  ■  Luke  xiv.  15. 


Ch.  m.J         The  Treasure  and  the  Pearl,  79 

representation.  Yet  even  here  there  must  needs  be  a  buying ; 
the  prophetic  paradox  finds  its  fulfilment,  for  even  he  that 
hath  no  money,  the  outcast  of  the  highway  and  hedges,  buys 
and  eats ;  buys  wine  and  milk  without  money  and  without 
price.1  The  men  who  were  first  bidden  did  not  partake  of 
the  feast  because  they  did  not  buy  ;  that  is  to  say,  because 
they  were  unwilling  for  a  season  to  leave  off  farming  opera- 
tions and  forego  connubial  bliss  to  enjoy  the  hospitality  of 
the  neighbour  who  issued  the  invitations.  They  did  not 
value  the  feast  enough  to  be  willing  to  make  such  a  sacrifice 
for  it.  And  the  men  who  were  last  bidden  and  who  came, 
with  what  did  they  buy  ?  With  a  victory  over  the  tempta- 
tion to  think  that  so  great  a  bliss  could  not  possibly  be  meant 
for  such  wretches  as  they  were.  They  had  to  be  compelled, 
not  because  they  were  indifferent,  but  because  the  invitation 
seemed  too  good  news  to  be  true.  And  the  price  they  paid 
was  the  renunciation  of  their  doubts,  and  the  exchange  of  the 
humility  of  unbelief  for  the  deeper,  truer  humility  of  faith, 
which  could  dare  to  believe  that  God's  grace  could  reach 
even  unto  such  as  they.  And  as  none  can  be  poorer  than 
they,  it  thus  appears  that  it  is  always  possible  for  one  who  is 
in  earnest  to  buy  the  kingdom.  In  the  spiritual  world  there 
is  no  risk  of  a  man,  who  greatly  values  the  hidden  treasure, 
finding  himself  so  poor  that  he  cannot  purchase  the  field  in 
which  it  lies.  Though  the  parable  seems  to  have  no  consider- 
ation for  the  poor,  it  is  only  on  the  surface.  Rightly  under- 
stood, it  is  quite  in  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  Him  who 
declared  it  to  be  His  mission  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  the 
poor.  All  may  have  wherewithal  to  buy  the  field.  For  all 
men  have  hearts,  and  he  who  loves  the  hidden  treasure  with 
all  his  heart  can  show  his  love,  and  that  is  all  the  price  that 
is  needed.  The  presence  of  the  love  in  the  heart  shows  itself 
very  variously  in  different  men  ;  the  All  which  is  sacrificed  is 
very  diverse  in  degree  and  in  kind  for  one  from  what  it  is  for 
another.  The  price  which  the  fishermen  of  Galilee  paid  for 
the  kingdom  of  God  was  their  fishing  boats  and  nets  ;  a  very 
humble  all,  but  quite  sufficient  to  buy  the  field  and  the 
precious  pearl.  The  price  which  the  young  man,  who  came 
seeking  eternal  life,  was  asked  to  pay,  was  his  large  fortune,  a 

1  Isa.  lv.  I. 


80  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,   [book  i, 

much  larger  all,  yet  not  more  than  sufficient.  The  price  paid 
by  Saul  of  Tarsus  was  his  carefully  elaborated  system  of  legal 
righteousness.  Augustine,  on  the  other  hand,  bought  the 
kingdom  by  a  price  different  from  all  these,  viz.  by  parting 
with  the  darling  object  of  a  guilty  passion.  The  price,  we 
repeat,  is  various  in  degree  and  in  kind.  But  the  poorest  in 
purse  or  reputation  can  find  a  price  of  some  sort  wherewith  to 
buy  the  kingdom.  For  the  kingdom,  when  it  comes  to  men, 
finds  every  one  of  them  either  loving  something  that  ought 
not  to  be  loved  at  all,  or  loving  some  legitimate  object  of 
affection  too  well ;  and  its  demand  is  that  such  sinful  or 
inordinate  attachment  should  cease  in  its  own  favour,  and 
when  the  demand  is  complied  with,  the  price  which  buys  the 
chief  good  is  paid. 

From  the  foregoing  explanation  of  the  buying  of  the 
kingdom  it  will  be  seen  that  it  is  quite  compatible  not  only 
with  the  nature  of  the  latter  as  a  kingdom  of  grace,  but  with 
the  joyous  spirit  which  ought  to  characterise  the  citizens  of 
such  a  kingdom.  The  sacrifice  by  which  the  kingdom  is 
bought  is  made  not  by  constraint  but  willingly :  not  in  forced 
obedience  to  an  outward  commandment,  but  in  free  obedience 
to  the  inward  constraint  of  love.  The  sacrifice  is  made 
cheerfully,  gaily,  whenever  the  kingdom  is  seen  to  be  the 
summum  bonum — when  we  know  in  their  priceless  worth  the 
things  that  are  freely  given  to  us  of  God.  The  genuine 
citizens  of  the  kingdom  all  say  of  it  "  all  my  springs  are  in 
Thee,"  not  lugubriously  but  with  singing  and  dancing ; x  albeit 
one  has  come  from  Egypt,  another  from  Babylon,  and  a  third, 
a  fourth,  and  a  fifth  from  Philistia,  Tyre,  and  Ethiopia ;  cheer- 
fully forgetting  their  old  country  for  the  sake  of  the  new- 
found fatherland.  It  will  be  observed  how  carefully  the 
parable  is  constructed  so  as  to  exclude  a  legal  cheerless  view 
of  the  sacrifice  as  something  arbitrarily  exacted.  The  sacri- 
fice is  made  to  appear  the  natural  outcome  of  the  joy  over 
the  discovery  just  made  of  the  treasure.     "  In  his  joy  he 

1  Psalm  lxxxvii.  7.  This  verse  of  the  Psalm  is  rendered  by  Delitzsch, 
"and  singing  and  dancing"  (they  say)  "all  my  springs  are  in  thee,"  that 
is,  in  Zion,  viewed  as  the  metropolis  of  the  Divine  kingdom.  The 
new-born  citizens  go  about  in  the  streets  of  the  mother-city  of  the  Divine 
kingdom  expressing  in  dance  and  song  their  joy,  the  burthen  of  theil 
•ong  being,  "  all  my  springs  in  thee."    What  a  graphic  picture  1 


ch.  in.]  The  Treasure  and  the  Pearl.  81 

goetb  and  selleth  all  that  he  hath  and  buyeth  that  field." 
This  is  an  important  touch  in  the  picture,  and  it  is  all  the 
more  worthy  of  notice  that  it  serves  to  correct  a  false  impres- 
sion that  might  easily  be  made  by  the  description  of  the 
stony  ground  hearer  in  the  parable  of  the  Sower,  as  one  who 
receives  the  word  with  joy,  but  when  tribulation  arises  is 
offended.  This  may  very  readily  be  mistaken  for  a  disparage- 
ment of  joy  as  the  mark  of  a  superficial  nature,  and  as  seldom 
accompanied  or  followed  by  heroic  fidelity.  That  no  such 
insinuation  was  meant  is  manifest  from  this  parable,  which 
not  only  represents  intense  joy  as  characteristic  of  the 
treasure-finder,  but  further  represents  that  joy  as  the  direct 
source  of  self-sacrifice.  From  this  instance  we  may  learn  to 
be  on  our  guard  against  hasty  inferences  from  isolated  or 
accidental  features  in  parabolic  embodiments  of  spiritual 
truth.  And  the  caution  may  be  applied  not  only  to  the  joy 
ascribed  to  the  stony  ground  hearer,  but  to  the  secrecy  or 
cunning  ascribed  to  the  treasure-finder.  Some  interpreters 
of  the  parables  have  taken  this  as  a  feature  to  be  emphasised, 
drawing  from  it  the  doctrine  that  silence  or  secrecy  at  the 
commencement  of  the  Christian  life  is  necessary  in  order  to 
make  conversion  thorough  and  stable,  and  pointing  to  Christ's 
withdrawal  into  the  wilderness  after  His  baptism,  or  to  Paul's 
three  years'  seclusion  in  Arabia  by  way  of  illustration.1  Now 
it  is  true  that  secrecy  and  silence  are  sometimes  advantageous, 
and  also  that  they  often  characterise  men  of  earnest  thought- 
ful temper  at  the  commencement  of  their  religious  life.  But 
in  the  first  place  it  cannot  be  laid  down  as  a  universal  rule, 
that  wherever  there  is  religious  genuineness  and  thoroughness 
there  will  be  such  secrecy  and  silence  ;  and  in  the  second 
place,  when  these  characteristics  appear  they  have  a  different 
source  from  that  implied  in  the  parable.  The  treasure-finder 
hid  the  treasure  in  fear  lest  he  should  lose  it.  But  the  man 
who  has  begun  to  think  seriously  on  religion  hides  his  thoughts 
deep  in  his  heart,  not  from  fear  of  losing  them,  but  from 
delicacy  and  shyness.  New-born  religion,  like  youthful  love, 
is  a  shy,  retiring  thing,  which  shamefacedly  withdraws  from 
observation.     The  shyness  is  in  some  respects  beneficial,  and 

1  So  Arndt  and  De  Valenti.     Conf.  Trench  on  the  same  point 

O 


8 2  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  t, 

in  some  respects  it  is  the  reverse.  It  is  not  a  thing  to 
be  prescribed  as  part  of  a  necessary  method  for  insuring 
salvation. 

We  pass  now  from  the  common  to  the  distinctive  lessons  of 
the  two  parables.  And  here  it  may  be  well  to  begin  with  a 
caveat  against  the  assumption  that  these  parables  must  neces- 
sarily be  intended  to  teach  distinct  doctrines  concerning  the 
things  of  the  kingdom.  The  assumption  is  one  which  we  are 
naturally  inclined  to  make  from  the  mere  fact  of  there  being 
two  parables  and  not  one;  especially  when  it  is  taken  for 
granted  that  the  two  parables  were  originally  spoken  at  the 
same  time.  Why  speak  two  parables  on  the  same  theme  at 
one  time  unless  because,  while  both  set  forth  the  same  general 
truth,  each  exhibits  that  truth  under  a  different  phase  ?  The 
question  is  a  very  natural  one,  and  yet  for  our  part  we  do  not 
deem  it  prudent  to  lay  too  much  stress  on  the  argument  it 
contains,  or  even  to  be  sure  that  the  premises  on  which  the 
inference  rests  are  well-founded.  We  would  bear  in  mind  the 
possibility  that  these  two  parables  which  come  together  in 
Matthew's  narrative  were  spoken  on  different  occasions,  and 
that  therefore  the  difference  between  them  may  be  picturesque 
rather  than  doctrinal,  due  to  the  changing  forms  under  which 
a  creative  mind,  able  to  bring  forth  out  of  its  treasure  things 
new  and  old,  contemplated  the  same  truth  at  different  times. 
While  we  say  this,  however,  we  are  not  only  willing  but 
anxious  to  recognise  whatever  distinctive  lessons  may  seem 
fairly  deducible  from  the  twin  parables ;  and,  though  averse 
from  over-confident  dogmatism,  we  think  that  on  two  points 
their  peculiarities  have  didactic  significance. 

First,  it  seems  legitimate  to  emphasise,  as  all  expositors 
have  done,  the  fact  that  in  the  one  parable  the  material  good 
which  is  the  emblem  of  the  summum  bonum,  is  found  by 
accident,  while  in  the  other  it  is  obtained  as  the  result  of  a 
methodic  persistent  search.  The  spiritual  import  of  this 
distinction  has  been  diversely  apprehended.  A  recent  writer 
expresses  the  opinion  that  both  traits  point  to  the  difficulty  of 
recognising  in  the  kingdom  offered  to  men  the  highest  good, 
the  difference  being  that  in  the  one  case  the  difficulty  arises 
from  the  inherent  nature  of  the  kingdom  as  a  hidden  thing ; 
in  the  other  from  the  exacting  demands  which  the  quest  of 


CH.  in.]         T/ie  Treasure  and  the  Pearl.  83 

the  chief  good  involves.1  On  this  view  there  is  no  reference 
to  a  distinction  between  diverse  classes  of  recipients.  Most 
interpreters,  however,  have  regarded  the  fact  in  question  as 
intended  to  point  at  such  a  distinction,  and  to  divide  the 
recipients  of  the  blessings  of  the  kingdom  into  two  classes: 
those  to  whom  the  kingdom  comes  without  any  previous 
thought  on  their  part,  and  those  to  whom  it  is  given  as  the 
reward  of  an  earnest  foregoing  search.  Nathaniel  and  the 
woman  of  Samaria  have  been  referred  to  as  examples  of  the 
one  class,  and  Augustine  in  his  intensely  interesting  and 
eventful  religious  history,  as  described  by  himself  in  his  famous 
'  Confessions,'  as  an  out-standing  example  of  the  other.2  Now 
that  there  is  such  a  distinctior.  between  Christians  as  to  the 
manner  of  their  coming  into  the  kingdom  of  God  is  certain — 
there  are  finders  and  there  are  seekers  in  the  kingdom  of 
heaven.  Both  are  finders  of  God  and  the  chief  good,3  or 
rather  are  found  of  them,  for  in  all  cases  there  is  something  in 
religious  experience  which  does  not  depend  on  man's  will ; 
but  the  one  class  find  without  much  or  any  previous  quest, 
while  the  other  class  first  seek  earnestly,  and  it  may  be  long, 
and  then  eventually  find.  And  the  emblems  of  the  chief  good 
in  the  two  parables  answer  very  well  to  this  distinction 
between  the  two  classes  of  finders.  A  hidden  treasure  is  not 
a  thing  that  one  can  well  set  himself  to  seek  for,  though  men 
have  given  themselves  occasionally  to  such  an  apparently 
hopeless  quest.  But  goodly  pearls  are  things  to  be  sought 
after  and  obtained  as  the  result  of  a  continued  search ;  and 
one  may  reasonably  hope  at  length  to  find  the  best  after 
having  previously  found  many  good.  Such  finding  of  the 
best  is  not  only  probable  but  certain  in  the  spiritual  world, 
though  it  is  not  more  than  a  probability  in  the  natural. 
A  literal  pearl-seeker  may  never  find  the  one  best  pearl  in  all 
the  world.  But  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  they  that  seek 
shall  find.  Their  quest  may  be  long,  painful,  wearisome,  and 
they  may  experience  many  disappointments ;  meeting  now 
here,  now  there,  what  seems  on  first  view  a  very  precious 
pearl,  but  on  closer  inspection  is  found  to  have  flaws  which 

1  Goebel.  *  So  Trench,  pp.  125-6. 

■  The   actors   in   both   parables  are  described  as  finding:   bv  tvpin 
ivO^woi,  ver.  44,  ivfuv  Ik,  ver.  46, 


84  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  l 

depreciate  its  value.  But  one  day  they  shall  find  Him  whom 
unconsciously  they  seek,  and  in  Him  get  rest  to  their  souls. 
So  found  the  Pearl  of  Price  Justin  Martyr,  so  found  Him 
Augustine,  so  find  Him  shall  every  faithful  soul  who  hungers 
after  righteousness  and  passionately  longs  for  the  knowledge 
of  God  and  of  truth. 

But  to  return  to  the  distinction  between  finders  and  seekers. 
We  recognise  the  reality  of  the  distinction,  but  we  doubt 
whether  it  is  intended  in  the  parables  to  teach  the  existence 
of  such  a  distinction  ;  at  least  in  so  far  as  it  is  understood  to 
imply  a  moral  difference  between  the  two  classes.  For,  let  it 
be  observed,  the  treasure-finder  is  not  represented  as  indifferent 
to  the  discovery  he  has  made.  He  rejoices  over  the  happy 
discovery.  He  at  once  recognises  its  value  as  one  who  does 
not  now  for  the  first  time  learn  the  use  of  money.  He  would 
have  been  a  seeker  for  such  a  treasure,  not  less  earnest  and 
persistent  than  the  pearl  merchant,  had  there  been  any  reason- 
able hope  of  finding  one.  It  seems  therefore  quite  beside  the 
mark,  as  some  have  done,  to  make  this  man  represent  the 
spiritually  careless,  who  are  suddenly  arrested  on  their  godless 
career — of  those  who  go  to  church  to  laugh  and  remain  to 
pray,  of  youths  who  leave  their  country  homes  for  great  cities 
there  to  make  their  fortune,  and  find  what  they  had  not 
sought,  conversion  and  salvation.1  In  point  of  fact,  the  actors 
in  the  two  parables  seem  to  differ  not  so  much  in  spirit  as  in 
circumstances ;  and  the  question  forces  itself  upon  the  mind 
whether  after  all  the  design  be  not  to  make  an  objective 
distinction  between  men  as  to  their  respective  positions,  rather 
than  a  subjective  distinction  between  them  as  to  their  respective 
dispositions.  Does  not  the  one  parable  show  us  the  kingdom 
of  God  as  a  good  beyond  human  hope  and  expectation, 
coming  as  a  surprise  to  men  who  are  not  looking  for  it,  but 
who  gladly  welcome  it — all  the  more  gladly  because  it  was 
unexpected  ;  and  does  not  the  other  parable  show  us  the 
kingdom,  not  as  something  unique,  unexampled,  and  unlooked 
for,  but  as  the  best  of  its  kind,  the  like  of  which  in  kind 
already  exists  and  is  known,  so  as  to  raise  an  expectation  that 
something  better  of  the  same  kind  than  has  ever  yet  been  seen 
may  yet  be  found  ?  In  the  two  representations  there  is  no 
1  So  Arnot,  p.  137. 


ch.  in.]        The  Treasure  and  the  Pearl,  85 

apparent  difference  between  the  parties  concerned  except  in 
position.  They  act  differently  because  they  are  differently 
situated ;  either  would  act  like  the  other  if  he  were  in  his 
circumstances. 

On  this  ground  we  incline  to  think  that  the  parables  point 
to  a  distinction  between  men  as  to  position,  not  as  to  dis- 
position, and  show  us  how  men  of  the  same  spirit  will  behave 
towards  the  kingdom  of  heaven  in  their  respective  situations. 
They  will  both  make  it  welcome  when  found, — the  one  as  a 
good  he  had  not  looked  for,  the  other  as  a  good  after  which 
he  had  long  been  in  quest.  And  it  is  not  difficult  to  illustrate 
the  difference  in  situation  implied  in  the  parables.  Who 
were  the  men  in  our  Lord's  day  (for  it  is  thence  we  must  in 
the  first  place  seek  our  illustrations)  to  whom  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  was  as  a  treasure  hid  in  a  field  ?  They  were  such 
as  Zacchaeus  the  publican, — men  who  had  not  been  seeking 
the  kingdom  simply  because  they  had  been  accustomed  to 
be  treated  by  those  who  deemed  themselves  the  children  of 
the  kingdom,  as  persons  who  had  no  concern  or  interest 
therein,  until  they  had  come  themselves  to  believe  this. 
What  a  surprise  it  was  to  the  pariahs  of  Jewish  society  to 
find  that  Jesus  took  an  interest  in  them,  and  to  hear  Him 
speak  to  them  of  the  kingdom  as  if  it  were  specially  their 
affair  1  Here  indeed  was  a  treasure  these  poor  despised  ones 
had  not  been  looking  for!  not  because  they  set  no  value 
on  it,  but  because  they  had  not  ventured  to  hope,  had  not 
been  able  even  to  entertain  the  thought,  that  God  loved 
them.  And  who  were  they  to  whom  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
was  as  the  precious  pearl  found  after  lengthened  quest  ?  They 
were  those  who  waited,  as  they  who  wait  for  the  dawn,  for 
the  consolation  of  Israel ;  devout  men  who  diligently  read 
the  ancient  Scriptures  in  search  of  the  pearls  of  wisdom,  and 
who  had  learned  from  the  words  of  the  prophets  to  look  for 
one  Pearl  more  precious  than  all — Messiah,  the  incarnate 
Wisdom  of  God, — and  who  recognised  Him  in  Jesus  of 
Nazareth.  Equally  easy  is  it  to  illustrate  the  distinction  in 
question  from  the  apostolic  age.  The  men  to  whom  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  was  as  a  treasure  hid  in  a  field  were  the 
Gentiles  who  had  been  aliens  from  the  commonwealth  of 
Israel  and  strangers  from  the  covenants  of  promise,  having 


86  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  l 

no  hope,  and  without  God  in  the  world,  up  to  the  time  the 
Gospel  was  preached  to  them,  and  who  yet  at  once  welcomed 
that  Gospel  as  good  tidings  when  it  was  proclaimed  to  them ; 
their  hearts  having  been  prepared  for  its  reception  by  the 
very  misery  inseparable  from  a  life  without  hope.  The 
appropriateness  of  a  hidden  treasure  as  an  emblem  of  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  in  their  case  is  evinced  by  the  fact  that 
the  Apostle  Paul,  whether  with  conscious  reference  to  our 
parable  we  cannot  tell,  represents  the  admission  of  the 
Gentiles  to  participation  in  the  blessings  of  salvation  as  a 
mystery  hid  in  God,}  And  of  the  pearl-seekers  of  that  time 
we  may  find  good  samples  in  such  as  the  Eunuch  of  Ethiopia 
and  Lydia :  Gentiles  by  birth,  but  proselytes  to  the  Jewish 
religion,  who  in  that  religion  and  its  sacred  literature  had 
already  found  many  goodly  pearls,  but  yet  felt  that  there 
must  be  better  still  to  be  found,  and  who  did  at  length  find 
the  best  possible  in  Jesus  the  crucified. 

These  illustrations  from  the  beginning  of  the  Gospel  suffice 
to  show  the  reality  of  the  distinction  implied  in  the  two 
comparisons  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  to  a  hidden  treasure 
whose  existence  was  unsuspected,  and  to  a  pearl  which 
was  an  object  of  persistent  quest.  But  we  are  not  shut 
up  to  draw  our  illustrations  from  the  distant  past.  We 
may  find  parallels  to  the  two  classes,  diversely  situated,  as 
described,  in  every  age  and  in  our  own  time.  The  Gospel 
comes  as  a  hidden  treasure  to  all  converts  from  heathenism 
who  had  previously  been  yearning  in  dull  despair  for  the 
good  they  comprehended  not  and  never  hoped  to  see ;  and 
to  all  among  our  own  'lapsed  masses,'  as  we  somewhat 
heartlessly  call  them,  who,  having  spent  years  in  ignorance 
and  wretchedness,  have  at  length,  in  some  happy  hour,  come 
to  learn  that  in  Jesus  they  have  a  friend,  in  God  a  father,  and 
in  heaven  a  home.  And  the  Gospel  is  the  pearl  of  great 
price  to  those  who,  having  received  a  Christian  nurture, 
which  has  fostered  in  them  all  noble  affections,  on  reaching 
young  manhood  devote  themselves  to  the  pursuit  of  truth, 
wisdom,  and  righteousness,  not  immediately  convinced  that 
all  these  are  to  be  found  by  retaining  the  faith  in  which 
they  have   been  reared,  perhaps   for  a  time  rejecting   that 

1  Eph.  iii.  9. 


ch.  in.]  The   Treasure  and  the  Pearl,  87 

faith,  and  going  to  other  masters  than  Christ  in  quest  of  the 
true,  the  good,  and  the  fair;  but  at  length,  after  much 
wandering  and  earnest  search,  always  well  intended,  however 
fruitless  in  result,  find  rest  to  their  souls  in  accepting  Christ 
as  Master,  Lord,  and  Saviour,  in  whom  are  stored  all  the 
treasures  of  wisdom,  knowledge,  and  grace.1 

In  all  the  instances  alluded  to  we  have  felt  justified  in 
assuming  that  the  difference  is  one  of  situation  rather  than 
disposition.  All  alike  welcome  and  love  the  good  when  it 
is  presented  to  their  view.  We  must  not  leave  this  topic, 
however,  without  remarking  that  welcoming  the  highest  good 
in  either  class  of  cases  is  by  no  means  a  matter  of  course. 
In  both  parables  the  actors  are  represented  as  rejoicing  in 
the  discovery  of  the  chief  good,  but  it  is  not  intended  thereby 
to  teach  that  there  was  no  temptation  to  act  otherwise.  In 
both  situations  indicated  by  the  two  parables,  there  is  tempt- 
ation so  to  act  as  to  lose  the  good  that  is  attainable.  In  the 
case  of  the  treasure-finder  there  is  the  danger  of  being  pre- 
vented by  abject  fear  from  appropriating  the  good  within 
reach  ;  in  the  case  of  the  pearl-seeker,  of  being  too  easily 
satisfied  with  what  has  already  been  obtained,  and  giving  up 
the  quest.  How  ready  is  one  in  the  position  of  the  class 
called  'publicans  and  sinners'  to  regard  the  Gospel  of  the 
kingdom  as  too  good  news  to  be  true,  to  treat  the  invitation 
to  the  feast  as  a  jest,  and  not  seriously  meant ;  not  because 
he  would  not  gladly  go,  but  because  he  cannot  believe  he  is 
wanted.  And  how  ready  is  one  who  is  already  in  possession 
of  goodly  pearls  of  wisdom  and  virtue — admired  and  envied 
by  others — to  congratulate  himself  on  his  treasures,  and  to 
stop  short  prematurely  in  his  quest ;  a  philosopher,  a  man  of 

1  The  above  view  is  in  principle  identical  with  that  advocated  by 
Greswell.  He  says :  "  To  the  first  of  these  descriptions,  that  is,  to  the 
idea  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  as  represented  by  the  treasure,  I  think  it 
may  be  shown  will  correspond  the  privilege  of  becoming  a  Christian ;  and 
to  the  second,  in  which  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  adumbrated  by  the 
pearl,  the  profession  of  Christianity,  or  the  continuing  a  Christian  on 
principle."  He  adds:  uBy  the  privilege  of  becoming  a  Christian,  I 
understand  the  acceptance  of  the  first  offer  of  Christianity,  the  option  of 
the  Gospel  terms  of  salvation ;  an  offer  and  an  option  which  would  conse- 
quently be  inseparable  from  the  being  and  promulgation  of  Christianity, 
but  could  have  no  existence  until  it  began  to  be  preached." — VoL  ii. 
p.  234- 


88  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  l. 

science,  a  man  of  culture,  but  not  a  Christian.  How  many 
among  the  diverse  classes  of  our  society — the  cultured  and 
the  uncultured — may  be  committing  these  sad  mistakes  even 
now!  Happy  is  the  man  who  avoids  both,  and  is  able  to 
say  amen  to  the  sentiment  of  the  Apostle  Paul :  *  This  is  a 
credible  saying,  and  worthy  of  all  acceptation,  that  Christ 
Jesus  came  into  the  world  to  save  sinners," — credible,  not  too 
good  news  to  be  true,  though  certainly  very  surprising ; 
worthy  of  all  acceptation,  more  to  be  valued  than  all  other 
knowledge  or  wisdom. 

The  other  distinction  between  the  two  parables  as  to  didactic 
import,  we  shall  do  little  more  than  hint  at,  because  we  are 
by  no  means  sure  that  it  is  not  a  fancy.  It  is  this,  that  in 
the  former  of  the  two  parables  the  summum  bonum  seems  to 
be  exhibited  under  the  aspect  of  the  useful,  and  in  the  latter 
under  the  aspect  of  the  ornamental.  A  treasure  is  valuable 
as  supplying  the  means  of  purchasing  commodities  ;  a  pearl 
is  valuable  as  an  ornament.  That  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
should  be  presented  under  such  various  aspects  is  not  in- 
credible, for  as  the  summum  bonum  it  must  satisfy  all  man's 
legitimate  wants ;  and  man  is  not  only  a  being  who  craves 
happiness,  but  also  a  being  who  has  a  sense  of  the  beautiful. 
The  beau  ideal  must  embrace  at  once  the  true,  the  good,  and 
the  fair.  And  the  kingdom  of  heaven  does  meet  these  various 
wants  of  human  nature.  It  not  only  aims  at  putting  man  in 
a  happy,  saved  condition,  but  at  beautifying  and  ennobling 
him  as  the  possessor  of  wisdom  and  righteousness.  But  it 
may  be  said  there  is  no  foundation  for  such  a  distinction  in 
the  parables,  because  the  pearl-collector  is  a  merchant,  and  is 
interested  in  his  acquisitions  not  as  ornaments,  but  out  of 
regard  to  the  price  he  will  get  for  them.  That,  however,  is  a 
point  open  to  question.  The  word  Zuiropos  does  not  neces- 
sarily, though  it  may  usually,  denote  a  merchant ;  and  even 
though  it  were  conceded  that  a  merchant  is  intended,  mer- 
chants have  been  known  who  were  more  than  merchants,  and 
were  so  enamoured  of  some  article  they  had  purchased  as  to 
be  unwilling  to  sell  it  again.  In  favour  of  the  view  that  the 
collector  in  the  parable  is  a  pearl-fancier  rather  than  a  mere 
trader  is  the  statement  that  he  is  seeking  goodly  pearls.  O/ 
course  a  trader,  as  well  as  an  amateur  collector,  would  seek 


ch.  in.]  T/ie  Treasure  and  the  Pearl.  89 

only  goodly  pearls ;  for  to  what  end  buy  small,  unshapely, 
discoloured  specimens,  which  could  not  be  expected  to  attract 
purchasers?  But  why  expressly  mention  what  might  be 
taken  for  granted,  unless  to  indicate  that  the  man  had  a  peculiar 
exceptional  love  for  rare  and  excellent  specimens, — a  love 
due  to  personal  tastes,  not  to  trading  propensities?  But  it 
may  be  objected,  How  absurd  to  suppose  that  a  man  would 
give  all  he  had  for  a  single  pearl  he  did  not  mean  to  sell 
again,  and  make  a  profit  by !  "  If,  after  giving  all  that  he 
had  for  the  pearl,  he  had  hung  it  on  his  neck,  where  could  the 
poor  man  have  found  food  and  clothing  ? "  x  A  very  plausible, 
if  somewhat  vulgar  question  ;  yet  it  is  but  the  question  which 
the  world  asks  in  reference  to  the  demand  made  to  leave  all 
for  the  kingdom  :  "  What  shall  we  eat,  or  what  shall  we  drink, 
or  wherewithal  shall  we  be  clothed  ?  "  Ask  no  such  questions, 
replies  Christ.  Seek  first,  and  at  all  hazards,  the  kingdom  of 
God,  and  these  things  shall  be  provided  for  you.  And  this  is 
the  law  by  which  the  true  citizen  of  the  kingdom  is  guided. 
It  is  not  a  rule  to  be  mechanically  acted  on,  but  it  is  never- 
theless the  law  of  the  spirit  of  a  Christian  life.  In  acting  on 
such  a  law  a  Christian  exposes  himself  to  a  charge  of  folly. 
What  a  fool  was  the  man  who  parted  with  all  to  obtain  a 
single  pearl,  which  he  meant  to  keep  in  his  possession !  It 
was  the  act  of  one  who  had  a  craze,  who  had  gone  mad  in  the 
pursuit  of  a  hobby  1  True,  yet  such  folly  is  characteristic  of 
the  seekers  after  God.     It  is  the  folly  of  the  wise 

1  Arnot,  p.  156b 


CHAPTER   IV. 

THE  MUSTARD   SEED  AND  THE  LEAVEN  f 

OR,  THE    KINGDOM  OF  GOD  DESTINED   TO  GROW  TO    GREATNESS   IW 
NUMBERS   AND   IN   INFLUENCE. 

In  three  of  our  Lord's  parables  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is 
represented  as  the  subject  of  growth.  These  parables  are  the 
two  above-named,  and  the  parable  of  the  Blade,  the  Ear,  and 
the  Full  Corn,  preserved  in  Mark's  Gospel.  The  first  of  the 
three  teaches  that  the  kingdom  is  destined  to  increase  in 
outward  bulk  as  a  visible  society ;  the  second,  that  it  will 
manifest  itself  as  a  spiritual  power  exercising  a  progressive 
moral  influence,  and  gradually  transforming  the  character  of 
the  individual  or  the  community  by  whom  or  which  it  has 
been  received  ;  the  third,  that  in  its  growth  the  kingdom  will 
resemble  corn  which  groweth  secretly,  spontaneously,  gradu- 
ally, passing  in  the  course  of  its  growth  through  various  stages 
in  accordance  with  a  fixed  law  which  cannot  be  set  aside,  and 
yielding  fruit  only  in  the  proper  season,  which  cannot  be 
hurried  on,  but  must  be  patiently  waited  for.  The  three 
parables  might  very  legitimately  be  considered  in  one  chapter, 
as  together  exhibiting  Christ's  teachings  on  one  important 
theme.  That  the  Evangelists  regarded  them  as  of  kindred 
import  appears  from  the  manner  in  which  they  connect  them 
in  their  narratives,  the  first  and  third  Evangelist  joining 
together  the  parables  of  the  Mustard  Seed  and  the  Leaven, 
and  the  second  connecting  the  former  of  these  with  the 
parable  of  the  seed  growing  gradually,  which  he  alone  has 
recorded.  And  a  hasty  glance  suffices  to  show  that  as  the 
three  parables  have  a  common  didactic  purpose,  so  they  serve 
one  practical  aim.     They  are  designed  to  inspire  hope  and 


en.  iv.1    The  Mustard  Seed  and  the  Leaven.  91 

patience  amid  circumstances  fitted  to  breed  despondency  and 
discouragement.  In  presence  of  the  small  and  insignificant 
beginnings  of  the  kingdom,  Jesus  says  to  His  disciples :  Fear 
not,  that  which  now  appears  so  small  and  weak  will  one  day 
be  a  great  fact  and  a  mighty  power.1  And  lest  disciples 
should  despair  of  that  day  ever  appearing  because  it  tarried 
longer  than  they  expected,  or  should  seek  to  hurry  it  on  by 
impatient  earnestness,  their  Master  speaks  to  them  the  third 
parable  to  teach  them  what  to  expect  in  regard  to  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  from  the  analogy  of  growth  in  the 
kingdom  of  nature. 

It  will  be  convenient  to  confine  our  attention  for  the 
present  to  the  first  two  of  the  three  parables  concerning  the 
growth  of  the  kingdom,  reserving  the  third  for  a  future  chapter. 

The  two  parables  of  the  Mustard  Seed  and  the  Leaven 
form  a  pair  which  have  for  their  common  object  to  exhibit 
the  prospects  of  the  kingdom  on  the  hopeful  side,  in  contrast 
to  the  parables  of  the  Sower  and  the  Tares,  which  present  the 
dark  side  of  the  picture.  Both  proclaim  the  important  truth 
that  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  destined  to  advance  from 
a  small  beginning  to  a  great  end.  But  the  two  parables 
present  this  common  truth  under  diverse  aspects.  The  one 
predicts  the  extensive,  the  other  the  intensive  growth  of  the 
kingdom.  Each  parable,  also,  has  Its  own  way  of  conceiving 
the  kingdom  answering  to  its  peculiar  mode  of  viewing  the 
growth.  In  the  one  parable,  that  of  the  Mustard  Seed,  the 
kingdom  is  conceived  of  as  a  visible  society,  which  is  sus- 
ceptible of  increase  in  its  bulk  by  addition  to  the  number  of 
its  membership.  In  the  other  parable,  that  of  the  Leaven, 
the  kingdom  is  conceived  of  as  a  moral  or  spiritual  power, 
which  is  susceptible  of  increase  in  the  transforming  influence 
which  it  exerts  on  those  who  are  subject  to  its  operation. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  the  one  parable,  the  disciples  of 
Jesus,  few  in  number,  a  "  little  flock,"  are  the  kingdom  in  its 
initial  stage,  destined  to  grow  from  that  nucleus,  small  as  a 
grain  of  mustard  seed,  into  the  dimensions  of  the  Christian 
Church.    From  the  point  of  view  of  the  other  parable,  not  the 

1  His  parabolis  (Mustard  Seed  and  Leaven)  discipulos  suos  animat 
Christus,    ne   hwmilibus  evangelii    exordiis   offensi,   resiliant. — Calvin, 
Comment.' 


92  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  i. 

disciples  themselves,  at  least  in  the  first  place,  but  rather  that 
which  makes  them  disciples,  the  faith  in  their  hearts,  is  the 
kingdom,  they  being  in  the  first  instance  at  least  the  mass  to 
be  leavened  by  its  renewing  influence.  For  the  parable  of 
the  Leaven  admits  of  two  applications,  a  narrow  and  a  wide, 
an  individual  and  a  social.  The  mass  to  be  leavened  may  be 
a  single  Christian  or  a  whole  community,  just  as  we  have 
occasion  to  regard  it ;  because  what  is  intended  to  be  taught 
in  the  parable  is  the  transforming  power  of  Christianity,  and 
that  may  be  illustrated  either  in  the  individual  man  or  in 
society  at  large.  The  parable  of  the  Mustard  Seed,  on  the 
other  hand,  admits  properly  only  of  the  wider  application,  for 
the  point  of  the  parable  is,  that  the  kingdom  of  heaven  as 
a  phenomenon  taking  its  place  in  the  world  is  destined  to 
increase  in  outward  bulk,  which  can  take  place  only  by 
addition  to  the  numbers  of  a  society  already  existing,  though 
small  and  insignificant  to  the  world's  eye  as  a  grain  of 
mustard  seed.  We  may,  of  course,  easily  make  this  parable 
also  susceptible  of  application  to  the  individual,  if  with  some 
we  make  the  mustard  seed  represent  the  same  thing  as  the 
leaven,  that  is,  not  the  insignificant  company  of  Christ's 
disciples,  but  the  faith  through  which  they  became  disciples. 
For  such  a  view  plausible  ground  may  be  found  in  those 
gospel  texts  in  which  faith  is  compared  to  a  grain  of  mustard 
seed.  We  are  persuaded,  however,  that  the  best  way  to 
understand  these  two  parables  and  to  extract  the  greatest 
amount  of  instruction  from  them  is  not  to  run  them  into  each 
other,  but  to  keep  their  points  of  view  as  distinct  as  possible ; 
understanding  the  one  to  represent  the  kingdom  as  a  society 
destined  to  extend  itself  more  and  more  over  the  earth,  and 
the  other  to  represent  the  same  kingdom  as  a  spiritual 
influence  destined  to  pervade,  with  ever-increasing  complete- 
ness, the  whole  of  human  life  whether  individual  or  social. 
Thus  viewed,  these  parables  teach  not  only  distinct,  but 
mutually  supplementary  lessons,  which  must  be  taken  together 
in  order  to  yield  a  view  of  the  Divine  kingdom  and  its 
prospects  which  can  satisfy  intelligent  and  earnest  minds. 
For  neither  an  extensive  society  of  imperfectly  sanctified 
men,  nor  a  small  society  of  men  completely  sanctified, 
answers  to  our  ideal  of  what  the  kingdom  should  be.     What 


ch.  iv.]  The  Mustard  Seed.  93 

we  desiderate  is  a  commonwealth,  at  once  vast  in  extent  and 
holy  in  its  character.  Such  a  society  it  is  which  is  offered  to 
our  hope  in  these  two  parables.  The  one  predicts  that  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  will  eventually  be  a  society  of  great 
dimensions,  taking  rank  in  this  respect  with  the  kingdoms  of 
this  world ;  the  other  that  it  will  be  a  society  animated  in 
all  its  parts  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  in  this  respect  not  of 
this  world. 

The  Mustard  Seed. 
The  parable  as  it  stands  in  Matthew  is  as  follows : 

The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  to  a  grain  of  mustard  seed,  which  a  man 
took,  and  sowed  in  his  field  :  which  indeed  is  the  least  of  all  seeds,  but 
when  it  is  grown,  it  is  the  greatest  among  herbs,  and  becometh  a  tree, 
so  that  the  birds  of  the  air  come  and  lodge  in  the  branches  thereof. — 
Matt.  xiii.  31,  32 ;  parall. :  Mark  iv.  30—32,  Luke  xiii.  18,  19. 

The  variations  in  the  other  Gospels  are  of  no  great  import- 
ance. In  Mark's  version  we  observe  a  tone  of  exaggeration 
in  reference  both  to  the  smallness  of  the  seed  and  to  the 
greatness  of  the  plant  which  springs  from  it.  The  seed  is 
said  to  be  the  least  of  all  the  seeds  that  are  upon  the  earth,1 
and  the  tree  is  represented  as  shooting  out  great  branches,* 
so  that  the  fowls  of  the  air  can  lodge  under  its  shadow. 
These  peculiarities  may  be  set  down  to  account  of  the  pictorial 
graphic  style,  characteristic  of  the  second  Evangelist.  Luke 
on  the  other  hand,  makes  no  mention  of  the  smallness  of  the 
seed,  but  adverts  only  to  the  growth  of  the  plant  into  a  tree 
large  enough  to  be  a  lodging-place  for  the  birds.  This  may 
be  due  in  part  to  the  connection  in  which  he  introduces 
the  parable.  Immediately  before  stands  a  narrative  which 
exhibits  Jesus  triumphing  over  Pharisaic  censors  of  one  of 
His  Sabbatic  miracles,  and  winning  by  His  reply  to  their 
objections  the  hearty  applause  of  an  ingenuous  multitude. 
In  the  honest  joy  of  the  people  over  the  marvellous  works 
wrought  by  Jesus,  and  the  unanswerable  words  of  wisdom 
spoken  by  Him  in  self-defence,  the  Evangelist  sees  a  good 
omen  of  the  future,  and  he  is  reminded  thereby  of  the  parable 
in  which  Jesus  had  foreshadowed  the  growth  of  His  kingdom 

*  pucport pov  ov  ttuptuv  tOiv  airtpfiaruv  nTiv  Liri  rqc  yqc  (iv.  31). 

'  voui  K\ddovi  piyaXovC. 


94  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  l 

from  its  small  beginnings  to  a  great  magnitude  ;  only,  as  there 
was  nothing  in  the  circumstances  which  recalled  the  parable 
to  his  recollection  leading  him  to  emphasise  the  smallness  of 
the  beginning,  he  gives  exclusive  prominence  to  that  side  of 
the  parable  which  predicts  the  greatness  of  the  end.  But, 
indeed,  in  the  case  of  the  third  Evangelist,  the  one-sided 
prominence  given  to  the  ultimate  greatness  of  Christianity 
scarce  needs  so  minute  explanation.  It  is  sufficiently 
accounted  for  by  the  one  consideration  that  he  is  the 
Evangelist  of  the  Gentiles,  and  that  he  magnifies  his  office. 
His  specialty  is  to  note  carefully  all  that  points  towards  the 
grand  consummation  of  Christianity  becoming  the  religion  of 
the  world.  In  view  of  this  familiar  fact  one  is  strongly 
tempted  to  accept  as  genuine  the  reading  hivhpov  \xiya  found 
in  some  codices,1  as  well  as  in  the  textus  receptus,  though 
rejected  by  critical  editors.  It  would  certainly  come  very 
natural  to  Luke,  if  at  all  admissible,  to  say  "  it  grew,  and 
waxed  a  great  tree."  It  is  true  that  that  would  be  an  exagger- 
ation, but  so  also  is  the  phrase  in  Mark's  Gospel, "  and  shooteth 
out  great  branches,"  about  the  genuineness  of  which  there  is 
no  room  for  doubt.  The  much  more  probable  supposition, 
however,  is  that  the  \ikya  is  a  marginal  gloss  introduced  into 
the  text  by  some  copyist  who,  failing  to  catch  the  pre- 
cise drift  of  the  parable,  thought  it  required  the  tree  to  be 
great. 

Whatever  may  be  the  truth  as  to  the  correct  text  of  Luke's 
version  of  the  parable,  there  can  be  no  question  that  in 
Matthew's  version,  as  compared  with  that  of  either  Luke  or 
Mark,  we  have  the  most  exact  account  of  what  our  Lord 
actually  said,  so  that  we  may  with  all  confidence  make  it  the 
basis  of  our  observations.  Turning  then  to  the  parable  as  we 
find  it  there  recorded,  we  remark  first,  that  therein  the  declar- 
ation that  the  kingdom  is  destined  to  advance  from  a  small 
beginning  to  a  great  end  is  made  by  Jesus  in  a  character- 
istically meek  and  sober  manner.  The  smallness  of  the  begin- 
ning is  much  more  emphatically  asserted  than  the  greatness 
of  the  end  ;  characteristically  we  say,  for  in  this  parabolic 
utterance  Jesus  but  repeats  what  we  find  Him  elsewhere 
saying  in  other  terms.  In  comparing  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  in  its  present  initial  stage  to  a  grain  of  mustard 
1  Of  the  great  uncials  the  Codex  Alexandrinus  has  this  reading. 


":h.  iv.]  The  Mustard  Seed.  95 

seed,  He  says  in  effect  the  same  thing  as  when  He  called  the 
humble  band  of  men  who  followed  Him  a  "  little  flock," l  and 
spoke  of  them  as,  in  comparison  with  the  wise  and  prudent, 
"  babes."  *  All  the  three  sayings  were  the  utterances  of  a 
lowly  mind  that  shrank  not  from  the  frankest  and  fullest 
acknowledgment  of  all  circumstances  pertaining  to  His 
present  state  of  humiliation.  Of  the  three,  that  contained 
in  our  parable  presents  the  most  intense  expression  of  the 
mean  condition  of  the  kingdom  in  its  initial  phase.  For  no 
apter  emblem  of  insignificance  could  possibly  be  found  than 
a  grain  of  mustard  seed,  it  being,  as  is  declared  in  the  parable, 
"  the  least  of  all  seeds."  In  order  to  justify  our  assertion  it  is 
not  necessary  to  take  this  statement  in  the  text  strictly,  as  if 
it  meant  that  it  is  not  possible  to  find  anywhere  upon  the 
earth  a  smaller  seed  than  that  of  mustard.  Smaller  seeds  do 
exist,  such  as  those  of  the  poppy  and  the  rye.  It  is  not  even 
necessary  to  maintain  that  the  mustard  seed  is,  or  was  at  the 
time  when  and  in  the  country  where  the  parable  was  spoken, 
the  smallest  of  all  seeds  in  proportion  to  the  size  of  the  plant 
which  springs  from  it.3  Even  this  proposition  may  be  doubt- 
ful ;  it  may  fairly  be  questioned,  for  example,  whether  the 
disproportion  between  the  mustard  seed  and  the  mustard  tree 
be  greater  than  that  between  the  acorn  and  the  oak.  It  is 
enough  to  say  that  the  mustard  seed  passed  in  our  Lord's 
day,  and  among  the  Jews,  for  an  emblem  of  the  superlatively 
little.  *  "  As  small  as  a  grain  of  mustard  seed  "  was  a  pro- 
verbial phrase  current  at  that  time,  of  which  we  have  evidence 
in  the  teaching  of  our  Lord  Himself,  in  the  reproachful  word 
which  He  spake  to  His  disciples  on  descending  from  the 
Mount  of  Transfiguration  :  "  If  ye  have  faith  as  a  grain  of 
mustard  seed,  ye  shall  say  unto  this  mountain,  Remove  hence 
to  yonder  place ;  and  it  shall  remove."  6  Whatever  answer, 
therefore,  natural  history  may  have  to  give  to  the  question 
which  is  the  smallest  of  all  seeds,  or  which  is  the  smallest  in 

1  Luke  xii.  32.  ■  Matt.  xi.  25. 

•  So  Bengel,  his  comment  on  ftiKponpov  being  "Non  absoluta,  se<f 
spectata  proportione  seminis  ad  germen." 

4  In  Adagium  vulgare  abiit  vT"in  37")T3=s  Pro  quantitate  grani  sinapis 
.  .  frequentissime  apud  Rabbinos,  rem  vel  quantitatem  minutissimam 
innuentes. — Lightfoot, '  Horae  Hebraicae.' 

•  Matt  xvii,  2<fc 


96  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    ([book  i, 

proportion  to  the  size  of  the  plant  which  springs  from  it,  it  is 
certain  that  Jesus  could  not  more  frankly  have  admitted  the 
utter  insignificance  of  the  Divine  kingdom  in  its  initial  state, 
as  it  appeared  in  Himself  or  in  His  disciples,  than  by  com- 
paring it  to  a  seed  which  in  common  speech  passed  for  the 
smallest  of  all. 

When  we  turn  from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  and  ask  our- 
selves how  far  the  mustard  plant  after  it  has  reached  its  full 
growth  is  a  fit  emblem  of  the  kingdom  grown  to  greatness, 
we  are  constrained  to  acknowledge  that  the  aptness  of  the 
parable  at  this  point  to  express  the  truth  intended  to  be 
taught  is  by  no  means  so  manifest.  For  the  plant  at  its  best 
is  only  a  great  herb ;  and  it  can  be  called  a  tree  only  by 
a  latitude  in  the  use  of  words.  If  it  be  a  tree  at  all,  it  is 
certainly  not  a  great  tree  as  the  cedar  is  great,  neither  are  its 
branches  great  as  are  the  wide-spreading  branches  of  the  oak. 
In  the  East,  where  it  attains  monstrous  proportions,  it  may  be 
the  greatest  of  all  herbs,  and  create  surprise  by  reaching 
such  a  size  as  to  entitle  it  almost  to  rank  among  the  trees  of 
the  forest.  But  even  there  it  is  after  all  a  thing  of  puny 
proportions  compared  with  the  cedars  of  Lebanon  or  tne 
oaks  of  Bashan.  Stories  are  told  of  mustard  trees  so  tall 
that  a  man  could  climb  up  into  their  branches1  or  ride 
beneath  them  on  horseback,  and  modern  travellers,  to  give 
us  an  idea  of  their  height,  tell  that  they  have  seen  samples  of 
the  tree  "  as  tall  as  the  horse  and  his  rider."  2  Accepting  fehese 
stories  as  free  from  exaggeration,  what  do  they  amount  to  ? 
Simply  to  this,  that  the  mustard  plant  in  Palestine  attains  to  a 
remarkable  height  for  a  garden  herb,  and  especially  for  an  herb 
springing  from  so  small  a  seed.  If  they  were  offered  as  proof 
that  the  plant  in  question  was  worthy  to  be  regarded  as  the 
equal  of  forest  trees,  they  would  simply  remind  us  of  the  fabie 
of  the  frog  striving  to  inflate  itself  into  the  dimensions  of  an  ox. 

Must  we  then  say  that  the  mustard  plant  is  wholly  unfit 
to  be  an  emblem  of  the  kingdom  in  its  advanced  stage  when 
it  has  attained  to  greatness  ?     Not  so  ;  we  must  tear  in  mind 

1  R.  Simeon  ben  Chalaphta  dixit,  Caulis  sinapis  erat  mihi  in  agro  meo, 
in  quara  ego  scandere  solitus  sum,  ita  ut  scandere  solent  in  ficum.— 
Lightfoot, '  Horae  Hebraicae.' 

■  Thomson,  *  The  Land  and  the  Book,'  p.  414.  He  makes  the  state* 
meat  with  reference  to  the  plain  of  Akkar,  where  the  soil  is  rich. 


ch.  iv.]  The  Mustard  Seed.  97 

the  difficulty  of  finding  one  thing  which  would  serve  both 
purposes,  and  be  content  if,  while  a  specially  fit  emblem  of 
the  early  stage  of  the  kingdom's  history,  the  object  selected 
be  a  sufficiently  apt  emblem  of  the  later  stage.  It  would 
have  been  very  easy  to  do  justice  both  to  the  beginning  and 
to  the  end  by  making  use  of  two  emblems,  the  one  to  repre- 
sent the  beginning,  the  other  the  end  ;  likening,  e.g.,  the 
kingdom  in  its  beginning  to  a  grain  of  mustard  seed,  and  in 
its  end  to  a  cedar  of  Lebanon.  But  the  truth  to  be  taught 
would  be  far  more  felicitously  and  impressively  set  forth  if 
one  natural  object  could  be  found  which  might  serve  as  an 
emblem  of  the  kingdom  in  both  stages ;  and  even  if  the 
emblem  should  not  serve  both  purposes  equally  well,  it  were 
enough  if  it  served  them  both  sufficiently  well.  Now  this  is 
the  actual  state  of  the  case  as  regards  the  mustard  seed.  It 
emblems  the  initial  stage  of  the  Divine  kingdom  excellently 
well,  and  it  emblems  the  final  stage  sufficiently  well.  It 
would  not  have  been  difficult  to  find  a  natural  object  whose 
emblematic  capabilities  would  have  been  the  inverse  of  the 
one  actually  adopted.  An  acorn,  for  example,  would  have 
been  better  fitted  to  convey  an  idea  of  the  vast  magnitude  of 
the  Christian  Church  in  its  advanced  stage  of  growth  ;  for 
out  of  the  acorn  comes  the  oak.  But  an  acorn  would  not 
have  served  so  well  to  convey  an  idea  of  the  utter  insignifi- 
cance of  the  beginnings  of  the  Church.  It  is  a  greater  marvel 
that  out  of  a  mustard  seed  should  come  a  mustard  tree,  than 
that  out  of  an  acorn  should  come  an  oak.  Possibly  the  relative 
proportions  between  seed  and  tree  may  not  be  very  unequal, 
but  the  outgrowth  excites  more  surprise  in  the  one  case  than 
in  the  other.  We  do  not  wonder  much  that  the  acorn  grows 
into  an  oak ;  we  do  wonder  when  we  are  told  that  a  seed  so 
tiny  as  that  of  the  mustard  plant,  which  in  its  own  nature  is 
only  an  herb,  grows  to  something  like  the  dimensions  of  a 
tree.  Probably  such  wonder  helped  to  give  currency  to  the 
proverb,  "  Small  as  a  grain  of  mustard  seed."  Men  were 
surprised  that  a  thing  so  small  should  grow  to  be  anything 
so  considerable,  and  by  the  contrast  between  seed  and  plant 
were  led  to  emphasise,  and  even  to  exaggerate,  the  smallness 
of  the  former.  And  this  wonder  was  just  the  cause  why  our 
Lord  selected  the  mustard  seed  as  the  emblem  of  the  kingdom, 


98  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  1. 

in  preference  to  an  acorn  or  any  other  seed  from  which 
large  trees  grew.1  He  preferred  an  emblem  whose  defect,  if 
defect  there  must  be,  should  lie  rather  in  the  direction  of 
inadequate  representation  of  the  end,  than  in  the  direction  of 
inadequate  representation  of  the  beginning.  He  did  so  partly 
because  it  was  congenial  to  His  meek  and  lowly  spirit,  but 
specially  because  it  suited  the  mental  condition  of  His  hearers. 
Adapting  His  lesson  to  the  spiritual  capacity  of  His  pupils, 
He  is  careful  to  select  an  emblem  which  shall  fully  recognise 
the  mean  aspect  of  the  kingdom  He  has  come  {o  found  in 
its  present  state,  and  at  the  same  time  show  by  a  natural 
analogy  that  even  a  movement  so  contemptible  in  appearance 
might  yet  come  to  be  a  considerable  phenomenon,  command- 
ing general  attention  and  respect.  He  is  not  so  anxious  to 
convey  an  exact  or  adequate  idea  of  the  ultimate  greatness  of 
the  kingdom.  He  is  content  with  indicating  that  it  will  not 
always  be  so  insignificant,  that  it  will  one  day  be  an  institution 
which  the  world  can  no  longer  treat  with  disdain,  that  it  will 
grow  till  it  be  not  only  a  very  large  herb,  but  even  not  un- 
worthy to  be  classified  as  a  tree.  That  it  will  be  the  greatest 
of  trees  He  does  not  assert.  He  does  not  even  say  that  it 
will  rival  other  trees  in  respect  of  size ;  He  deems  it  enough 
to  tell  disciples  unable  to  entertain  large  hopes  that  it  will 
outgrow  the  dimensions  of  a  garden  plant  and  attain  to  some- 
thing like  the  dimensions  of  a  tree.  Even  that  was  an  unlikely 
event  then,  and  quite  hard  enough  for  weak  faith  to  believe, 
without  making  any  further  demand  on  it.  To  the  eye  of 
sense,  judging  from  present  appearances,  it  seemed  impossible 
that  the  movement  to  which  Christ  gave  the  name  of  the 
Kingdom  of  heaven  could  ever  become  a  considerable 
phenomenon  in  the  history  of  the  world.  The  statement 
that  it  nevertheless  would  become  such  was  likely  to  provoke, 
even  in  believing  minds,  incredulous  surprise.  How  could 
such  a  state  of  mind  be  better  met  than  by  pointing  out  that 
the  wonder  in  the  spiritual  world  which  awakened  incredulity 
had  its  parallel  in  the  natural  world  ?  This  accordingly  is 
precisely  what  Jesus  did  in  uttering  this  parable :  pointing 

*  "  The  rule  ex  minimo  maximum,  which  is  the  rule  of  all  growth  in 
nature,  is  here  signalised  in  the  growth  of  the  mustard  seed  ;  specially  in  it, 
because  in  virtue  of  its  proverbial  peculiarity,  the  rule  is  illustrated  ifi  its 
case  with  striking  effect." — Goebel. 


ch.  iv.]  The  Mustard  Seed.  99 

out  in  the  case  of  the  mustard  seed  a  natural  object  proverbi- 
ally small,  which  grows  into  a  plant  of  astonishing  dimensions. 
No  happier  selection  could  have  been  made  for  the  purpose. 
The  mustard  seed,  viewed  as  the  parent  of  the  must  ird  tree, 
is  "  the  most  characteristic  emblem,  among  natural  objects, 
especially  of  its  own  class,  to  mark  the  disproportion  between 
the  first  beginning  and  the  final  result  of  any  process,"1  and 
in  particular  of  that  which  it  was  Christ's  aim  to  illustrate, 
the  growth  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  In  making  this  selection 
for  the  purpose  of  parabolic  instruction  on  this  topic,  the 
great  Teacher  showed  not  only  humility  and  sobriety  of  mind, 
but  conspicuous  wisdom  and  considerate  sympathy  with  those 
whom  He  would  instruct. 

When  we  look  at  the  parable  in  the  light  of  the  use  it  was 
probably  intended  to  serve  in  the  personal  ministry  of  Christ, 
we  are  delivered  from  all  temptation  to  catch  at  any  means 
of  making  the  emblem  of  the  kingdom  grown  to  greatness  a 
greater  thing  than  it  really  is,  if  the  common  mustard  plant 
be  what  is  intended.  Attempts  of  this  kind  have  been  made 
in  recent  years  by  travellers  and  men  of  science.  It  has  been 
contended  that  not  the  mustard  plant,  which  is  properly  not 
a  tree,  but  only  a  garden  herb  and  an  annual,  but  a  real  tree 
of  considerably  larger  dimensions,  found  in  some  parts  of 
Palestine,  and  widely  diffused  in  the  East,  is  the  object  pointed 
at  in  the  parable.  The  tree  referred  to  is  that  which  in  Syria 
goes  by  the  name  of  the  khardal  (the  Arabic  for  mustard), 
and  in  botanical  language  is  called  the  Salvadora  Persica 
The  first  to  suggest  the  hypothesis  were  the  travellers  Irby 
and  Mangles,  who  found  the  khardal  growing  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  Dead  Sea.2     The  conjecture  was  ingenious, 

1  Greswell '  on  the  Parables,'  vol.  ii.  p.  166. 

2  'Travels  in  Egypt  and  Nubia,  Syria  and  Asia  Minor,  during  the 
years  1817  and  1818.'  The  passage  relating  to  the  subject  is  as  follows: 
"There  was  one  curious  tree  which  we  observed  in  great  plenty,  and 
which  bore  a  fruit  in  bunches,  resembling  in  appearance  the  currant,  with 
the  colour  of  the  plum :  it  has  a  pleasant  though  strong  aromatic  taste, 
exactly  resembling  mustard,  and  if  taken  in  any  quantity,  produces  a 
similar  irritability  in  the  nose  and  eyes  to  that  which  is  caused  by  taking 
mustard.  The  leaves  of  this  tree  have  the  same  pungent  flavour  as  the 
fruit,  though  not  so  strong.  We  think  it  probable  that  this  is  the  tree  our 
Saviour  alluded  to  in  the  parable  of  the  Mustard  Seed,  and  not  the 
mustard  plant  which  we  have  in  the  north — for  although  in  our  journey 

H  2 


ioo  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  i. 

and  not  without  plausibility,  for  in  its  favour  could  be  alleged 
not  only  the  name  of  the  tree,  but  the  facts  that  the  seed  from 
which  it  springs  is  comparatively  small,  possesses  pungent 
qualities  like  those  of  mustard,  and  is  used  for  the  same 
purposes.  It  is  therefore  not  surprising  that  the  opinion 
hazarded  by  the  two  travellers  was  afterwards  espoused  and 
strenuously  advocated  by  scientific  writers,1  and  regarded 
with  favour  by  biblical  scholars  such  as  Meyer  and  Stanley.* 
It  is  now,  however,  generally  set  aside  on  sufficient  grounds; 
of  which  the  chief  are,  that  there  is  grave  reason  to  doubt 
whether  the  kkardal  ever  existed  or  even  could  exist  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  the  leading  scene  of  our 
Lord's  ministry,3  and  that  the  plant  of  the  parable  is  expressly 
represented  as  being  in  its  nature  a  garden  herb,  the  very 
point  of  the  parable  being  that  what  is  in  its  nature  an  herb, 
becomes  in  dimensions  something  approaching  a  tree.  We 
do  not  pretend  to  be  able  to  speak  with  authority  on  the 
point,  nor  do  we  entertain  any  feelings  but  those  of  sincere 
respect  for  efforts  to  ascertain  precisely  what  natural  objects 
are  pointed  at  in  Scripture  allusions  ;  but  we  may  be  per- 
mitted to  express  the  doubt  whether  the  opinion  in  question 
would  ever  have  been  seriously  entertained  had  men  been  as 
alive  to  the  moral  as  to  the  scientific  conditions  of  correct 
interpretation.  Doubtless  the  khardal  answers  better  to  the 
designation  '  tree,'  for  it  really  is  a  tree  in  nature,  and  it 
attains  a  height  of  some  twenty-five  feet,  while  the  mustard 
plant  does  not  reach  more  than  half  that  elevation.  But 
realise  the  moral  situation,  and  you  see  at  once  that  the 
khardal,  though  twice  as  tall,  is  not  half  so  appropriate  as  the 

from  Bysan  to  Adjeloun  we  met  with  the  mustard  plant  growing  wild,  as 
high  as  our  horses'  heads,  still  being  an  annual  it  did  not  deserve  the 
appellation  of  a  tree ;  whereas  the  other  is  really  such,  and  birds  might 
easily,  and  actually  do,  take  shelter  under  its  shadow"  (p.  255"). 

1  Prominent  among  these  is  Dr.  Royle,  who  first  set  forth  his  views  on 
the  subject  in  a  paper  re.id  bet  ore  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society  in  1844,  and 
published  in  vol.  viii.  of  their  Transactions. 

8  I  'ide  Meyer's  Commentary,  and  Stanley's  '  Sinai  and  Palestine.' 
•  Tristram  says:  "There  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  at  any  time  it 
grew  by  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  and  very  strong  grounds  for  doubting  that  it 
could  flourish  there  at  all.  It  is  in  fact  one  of  the  many  tropical  plants 
whose  northern  limit  is  in  these  sultry  noo'cs  by  the  Dead  Sea,  and  which 
6pread  no  farther  north." — '  Natural  History  of  the  Bible,'  p.  473. 


ch.  iv.]  The  Mustard  Seed.  101 

mustard  plant  to  be  an  emblem  of  the  kingdom  of  God  in  its 
developed  state.  It  is  no  marvel  that  a  plant  of  the  tree 
species  should  grow  to  the  height  of  twenty-five  feet,  it  is 
rather  remarkable  that  it  should  grow  no  taller ;  but  it  is  a 
marvel  that  a  plant,  which  is  by  nature  an  herb,  should  in  its 
growth  even  so  much  as  approximate  the  dimensions  and 
aspect  of  a  tree.  And  what  is  required  by  the  moral  situation 
is  just  such  a  marvel  in  physical  nature  to  inspire  faith  in  the 
possibility  of  a  like  marvel  in  the  spiritual  world — a  religious 
movement  in  its  present  aspect  despicably  mean,  becoming 
one  day  a  great  fact  of  such  proportions  that  men  could  no 
longer  despise  it. 

The  parable  then,  viewed  as  having  reference  to  the  com- 
mon mustard  plant,  is  altogether  worthy  of  our  Lord's 
wisdom,  whether  we  consider  its  bearing  on  the  beginning 
or  on  the  end  of  the  kingdom.  Christ  showed  His  wisdom  in 
selecting  a  grain  of  mustard  seed  to  be  an  emblem  of  the  king- 
dom in  its  obscure  beginnings,  because  the  emblem  was  not 
only  true  to  fact,  but  to  the  law  or  principle  of  the  case. 
Worldly-minded  Jews  could  not  believe  that  so  mean  a  thing 
as  the  movement  with  which  Jesus  and  His  disciples  were 
identified  could  possibly  be  the  kingdom  of  God  come.  15ut 
the  meanness  and  the  smallness  of  the  movement  were  no 
argument  against  its  Divinity,  but  rather  a  presumption  in 
favour  of  its  being  Divine.  It  is  the  way  of  Divine  move- 
ments in  the  world's  history  to  begin  obscurely  and  end 
gloriously  ;  and  it  not  unfrequently  happens  that  there  is 
more  Divinity  in  the  obscure  beginning  than  in  the  glorious 
ending.  For  while  the  movement  is  obscure  men  are  not 
likely  to  join  it,  except  as  moved  by  the  spirit  of  truth  and 
'goodness ;  but  when  it  has  become  famous,  worldly  men  may 
join  it  from  by-ends,  and  so  make  what  at  first  was  a  Divine, 
heavenly  thing,  undivine  and  earthly  enough.  Therefore  we 
may  say  that  Jesus  showed  His  wisdom  also  in  making  the 
mustard  plant  at  its  full  height  an  emblem  of  the  kingdom  in 
its  advanced  stage,  not  merely  in  so  far  as  He  thereby  accom- 
modated His  teaching  to  the  spiritual  wants  and  capacities  of 
His  hearers,  but  more  especially  because  He  thereby  pre- 
sented to  view  a  kingdom  large  enough  to  satisfy  the  hope  <>f 
devout  souls,  but  not  so  large  as  to  awaken  ambitious  desire? 


102  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  \> 

and  worldly  expectations,  and  so  attract  unclean  ravenous 
birds  to  take  up  their  abode  among  the  branches  of  the  tree 
of  life. 

The  allusion  in  the  closing  words  of  the  foregoing  para- 
graph reminds  us  that  we  have  not  yet  noticed  that  part  of 
our  parable  in  which  our  Lord  speaks  of  the  birds  of  the  air 
as  coming  to  lodge  in  the  branches  of  the  mustard  tree.  The 
question  at  once  arises,  what  amount  of  significance  are  we  to 
attach  to  this  feature  ?  In  answering  the  question  it  is 
possible  to  err  both  by  excess  and  by  defect.  The  least  that 
can  be  said  is  that  the  fact  of  the  birds  frequenting  the 
branches  of  the  mustard  plant  is  mentioned  as  a  mark  that 
the  plant  has  become  a  tree.  The  construction  of  the 
sentence  makes  this  manifest:  "It  becometh  a  tree,  so  that1 
the  birds  of  the  air  come  and  lodge  in  the  branches  there- 
of." The  size  of  the  plant,  so  to  speak,  deceives  the  winged 
creatures,  and  makes  them  mistake  a  garden  herb  for  a 
forest  tree.  The  feature  is  not  introduced  merely  for  the 
sake  of  picturesque  effect,  but  to  define  the  character  of  the 
plant.  There  may  possibly  be  a  latent  allusion  to  Old 
Testament  texts,  in  which  birds  and  trees  are  associated 
together,  as,  e.g.,  those  in  that  beautiful  psalm  of  nature,  the 
106th,  which  speak  of  the  birds  singing  among  the  branches 
and  making  their  nests  among  the  cedars  of  Lebanon  ;  or  the 
well-known  passage  in  Daniel  which  describes  the  tree  of 
Nebuchadnezzar's  vision  in  these  poetic  terms:  "The  tree 
grew,  and  was  strong,  and  the  height  thereof  reached  unto 
heaven,  and  the  sight  thereof  to  the  end  of  all  the  earth :  the 
leaves  thereof  were  fair,  and  the  fruit  thereof  much,  and  in  it 
was  meat  for  all :  the  beasts  of  the  field  had  shadow  under  it, 
arid  the  fowls  of  the  heaven  dwelt  in  the  boughs  thereof,  and 
all  flesh  was  fed  upon  it."  2  It  would,  however,  be  going 
beyond  the  sober  truth  to  lay  much  stress  on  these  texts,  as 
if  Christ  meant  to  suggest  that  the  tree  of  His  parable 
resembled  in  size  the  cedars  of  the  Psalmist,  or  the  mystic 
tree  of  Nebuchadnezzar's  dream,  or  that  the  birds  resorted 
thereto  for  precisely  the  same  reason.  The  tree  of  the 
parable  is  not  large  enough  to  harbour  birds  of  all  sizes,  but 
only  small  birds  like  linnets  and  goldfinches ;  and  what  they 

1  &<rn,  with  the  infinitive.  •  Daniel  iv.  il. 


CH.  iv.]  The  Mustard  Seed.  103 

seek  therein  is  not  a  place  to  build  their  nests,  but  the  food 
it  supplies  in  its  seed,  which  they  devour  with  avidity.  The 
Greek  word  translated  in  the  English  version  "  lodge,"  does 
not  signify  "  to  make  nests  in,"  but  simply  "  to  settle  upon." x 
We  must,  therefore,  as  strict  expositors,  deny  ourselves  the 
pleasure  of  finding  in  this  parable  a  prophecy  of  a  time  when 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,  now  so  insignificant,  should  become 
a  vast  empire  rivalling  that  of  Nebuchadnezzar's  vision,  when 
the  tiny  seed  of  the  kingdom  should  develop  into  a  great 
forest  tree,  overshadowing  the  whole  earth,  and  affording 
harbourage  for  all  the  nations.  At  most  it  contains  a  slight 
hint  at  the  possibility  of  such  a  consummation,  suggesting  by 
the  words  employed  more  than  it  says,  or  than  the  parabolic 
envelope  of  the  thought  admits  of  being  said :  by  the  word 
"  tree  "  suggesting  a  forest  tree,  though  the  tree  actually  spoken 
of  is  little  more  than  a  large  bush,  and  by  the  reference  to  the 
birds  of  the  air  suggesting  the  idea  of  men  coming  from  every 
quarter  of  the  heavens  and  taking  up  their  abode  in  the 
Divine  commonwealth.  So  far  as  this  parabolic  utterance 
strictly  interpreted  is  concerned,  the  prophetic  eye  of  Jesus 
cannot  be  said  to  look  beyond  the  time  when  the  company  of 
His  disciples  should  have  received  large  accessions  within 
the  limits  of  Judaea,  the  garden  in  which  the  grain  of  mustard 
seed  was  originally  planted.  We  may  not  stretch  our  horizon 
much  beyond  Pentecost,  when  the  number  of  disciples  was 
increased  by  thousands  ;  scarcely,  though  we  gladly  would, 
as  far  as  to  the  later  movement  in  Antioch,  when  the 
kingdom  of  Christ  became  so  considerable  a  phenomenon  as 
to  require  a  new  name,  so  that  the  disciples  were  there  for  the 
first  time  called  Christians.  It  is  quite  legitimate  within 
these  limits  to  give  to  the  birds  of  the  air  a  symbolic  signifi- 
cance and  make  them  represent  converts  to  the  new  religion. 
It  is  not  absolutely  certain  that  the  birds  were  intended  to 
have  such  symbolic  significance  assigned  to  them,  but  it 
seems  probable  that  the  third  Evangelist  at  least  regarded 
them  in  that  light.  When  we  read  in  his  narrative  how  the 
people  rejoiced  in  the  wondrous  works  of  Jesus,  and  then 

1  This  disposes  of  one  objection  to  the  mustard  plant  being  the  object 
intended  in  the  parable,  viz.  that  at  the  time  when  birds  build  their  nest* 
it  is  too  small  to  be  used  for  such  a  purpose. 


104  The  Parabolic  Teaching  .of  Christ,     [book.  i. 

observe  how  he  takes  occasion  therefrom  to  record  the 
parable  of  the  Mustard  Tree,  in  whose  branches  the  fowls  of 
heaven  lodged,  we  cannot  help  feeling  that  in  his  mind  the 
fowls  are  identified  with  the  well-affected  multitude.  He 
seems  to  say  to  himself:  "  Behold  the  Lord's  parable  fulfil- 
ling itself:  see  how  the  birds  fly  to  the  branches  of  the 
mustard  tree." 

We  have  now  noticed  all  the  points  apparent  on  the 
surface  of  the  parable.  Other  points  not  apparent  derived 
from  the  known  properties  of  the  mustard  seed — its  heat,  its 
pungency,  the  fact  that  it  must  be  bruised  ere  it  yield  its  best 
virtues,  etc. — we  do  not  feel  called  to  remark  on,  agreeing  as 
we  do  with  those  who  think  that  analogies  based  on  these 
properties  are  foreign  to  the  purpose  for  which  the  parable 
was  spoken.  We  may,  however,  briefly  advert  to  an  opinion 
strenuously  maintained  by  Greswell,  that  it  is  intended  in  the 
parable  to  represent  the  spread  of  Christianity  as  of  a 
miraculous  character.  To  make  this  out  stress  is  laid  on  the 
contrast  between  the  smallness  of  the  mustard  seed,  and  its 
vegetative  vigour  as  manifested  in  the  size  to  which  the  plant 
attains ;  and  the  right  to  do  this  is  proved  by  a  reference  to 
the  other  passages  in  our  Lord's  teaching  in  which  the  seed 
of  mustard  is  spoken  of.  The  author's  contention  is,  that  the 
expression  "  faith  as  a  grain  of  mustard  seed,"  twice  employed 
by  Christ,  does  not  mean  faith  as  small  as  a  grain  of  mustard, 
but  faith  as  vigorous  in  its  vital  power.  Our  Lord,  it  is  held 
did  not  mean  to  say  that  any  degree  of  faith  would  suffice  to 
do  the  wonderful  things  of  which  the  removal  of  a  mountain 
into  the  sea  is  an  emblem,  as  that  would  involve  that  the 
disciples  had  no  faith  at  all — seeing  they  were  unable  to  do 
the  things  referred  to — which,  however,  was  not  the  fact. 
The  faith  that  can  remove  mountains  is  a  special  kind  of 
faith,  viz.  that  which  can  produce  miracles.  It  is  the  sort  of 
faith  which  Jesus  had  in  view  when  He  said  to  His  disciples  : 
"  Verily  if  ye  have  faith,  and  do  not  hesitate,  not  only  shall 
ye  do  the  miracle  of  the  fig  tree,  but  should  you  even  say 
unto  this  mountain,  Be  thou  lifted  up,  and  be  thou  cast  into 
the  sea,  it  shall  come  to  pass."  x     It  is  the  faith  which,  the 

1  Matt.  xxi.  21,  as  rendered  by  Greswell,  vide  his  work  on  the  Parables, 
p.  16a. 


ch.  iv.]  The  Mustard  Seed,  105 

following  morning,  Jesus  called  faith  of  God,1  a  Divine  faith, 
describing  its  character  and  power  in  similar  terms.  If  then 
the  mustard  seed  in  Christ's  teaching  elsewhere  be  an  emblem 
of  a  faith  whose  specific  characteristic  it  is  to  possess  Divine 
miraculous  power,  we  are  entitled  to  assume  that  it  retains 
that  significance  in  the  parable,  though  it  is  there  used  not  as 
an  emblem  of  faith,  but  of  the  kingdom  of  God  in  its  obscure 
beginnings.  In  comparing  the  kingdom  to  a  grain  of  mustard 
seed,  Jesus  meant  to  say :  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  now 
in  appearance  insignificant  and  impotent,  but  it  has  within  it 
a  Divine  power,  which  will  enable  it  to  triumph  over  all 
hindrances,  and  make  it  ere  long  great  and  mighty.  Such  is 
the  argument.  It  is  plausible,  and  of  course  the  doctrine 
which  it  seeks  to  establish  is  true,  but  whether  the  parable  be 
intended  to  teach  it  or  not  is  another  question.  On  that 
point  we  will  not  dogmatise ;  only  we  must  remark  that  in 
our  judgment  the  exegesis  of  the  other  texts,  on  which  the 
argument  is  based,  is  very  doubtful.  Faith,  small  as  a  grain 
of  mustard  seed,  is  the  interpretation  which  would  naturally 
be  put  upon  Christ's  words  by  hearers  living  in  a  land  where 
the  smallness  of  the  mustard  seed  was  proverbial.  The 
objection  that  this  interpretation  implies  that  the  disciples 
had  no  faith  at  all,  is  of  no  weight.  It  is  simply  a  prosaic 
inference  from  a  poetic  impassioned  utterance.  There  is  more 
force  in  the  consideration  that  the  statement  concerning  faith, 
even  thus  interpreted,  implies  that  faith  is  a  thing  of  such 
inherent  vitality  and  power,  that  even  a  little  of  it  can  do 
great  things  ;  and  as  the  same  thing  is  true  of  the  mustard 
seed,  it  is  not  unnatural  to  suppose  that  Christ's  full  thought 
was  this :  If  ye  had  but  faith  even  of  the  dimensions  of 
a  grain  of  mustard,  ye  could  work  wonders,  such  is  its 
power,  even  as  the  tiny  seed  has  vital  force  sufficient  to 
produce  a  plant  reaching  to  the  size  of  a  tree.  That  the 
paraphrase  contains  a  just  and  valuable  thought  we  admit, 
only  we  cannot  pretend  to  be  quite  sure  that  all  this  was 
suggested,  or  was  meant  to  be  suggested,  by  the  words  of  our 
Lord  to  those  to  whom  they  were  addressed. 

1  Mark  xi.  22.     wtvnv  9iov  is  the  expression  in  the  Greek,  rendered  in 
oar  version  "  faith  in  God,"  which  the  R.  V.  retains. 


xo6  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book,  l 

THE  LEAVEN. 

The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  unto  leaven,  which  a  woman  took,  and 
hid  in  three  measures  of  meal,  till  the  whole  was  leavened. — Matt. 
xiii.  33  ;  cf.  Luke  xiii.  20,  21. 

This  parable  relates  not  to  the  outward,  visible  increase 
which  the  kingdom  is  destined  to  undergo,  but  to  the  inward 
transformation  which  it  will  effect,  which  is  not  discernible 
by  the  physical  organ  of  vision,  but  by  the  moral  sense. 
The  action  of  leaven  on  the  dough  in  which  it  is  deposited 
is  not  so  much  to  change  its  bulk  as  its  condition,  and  the 
change  is  perceived,  not  by  the  eye,  but  by  taste.  The 
kingdom  of  heaven  in  this  connection  signifies  the  doctrine 
of  the  kingdom  which  exercises  a  moral  influence  on  the 
heart  and  life  of  those  who  receive  it.  It  is  quite  conipatible 
with  this  view  that  the  recipients  of  the  doctrine  should 
themselves  be  regarded  as  a  leaven.  Christians  are  a  leaven 
in  the  world,  as  they  are  the  light  of  the  world.  But  they 
are  a  leaven  in  virtue  of  the  truth  which  they  believe,  and 
the  spirit  which  animates  them  ;  and  they  act  on  the  world 
through  these  in  precisely  the  same  way  as  these  act  on 
themselves. 

In  likening  the  kingdom  of  heaven  to  leaven,  Jesus  in 
effect  proclaimed  a  great  truth,  which  pervades  all  Hi? 
teaching,  viz.  that  that  kingdom  is  in  its  nature  spiritual. 
Leaven  works  from  the  centre  to  the  circumference,  and  it 
works  by  the  method  of  contagion,  and  the  comparison  may 
be  held  to  imply  an  analogy  in  these  respects  between  the 
emblem  and  the  thing  emblemed  ;  that  is  to  say,  the  parable 
teaches  that  the  kingdom  of  heaven  first  takes  possession 
of  the  heart,  the  seat  of  life,  and  thence  proceeds  outwards, 
to  exercise  sway  over  conduct,  and  communicates  itself  from 
mind  to  mind  by  the  contagious  power  of  sympathy.  In 
these  respects  the  Divine  kingdom  differs  from  the  kingdoms 
of  this  world,  which  concern  themselves  chiefly  with  the 
outward  life,  and  employ  force,  or  laws  with  penalties 
annexed,  to  establish  their  authority.  But  it  is  not  peculiar 
to  the  Divine  kingdom  to  work  in  this  way ;  all  spiritual 
influence,  whether  good  or  evil,  acts  in  the  same  manner. 
The  mere  fact  of  a  religious  movement  resembling  leaven  in 


ch.  iv.l  The  Leaven.  107 

its  mode  of  spreading  itself  settles  nothing  as  to  its  truth  or 
moral  tendency.  Leaven  may  fitly  be  used  to  denote  an 
evil  moral  influence  as  well  as  a  good  ;  and  in  fact,  in  the 
larger  number  of  instances  in  which  it  is  named  in  the  New 
Testament,  it  is  employed  in  a  bad  sense.  Hence  some 
have  inferred  that  it  must  be  so  understood  always,  and 
therefore  also  in  this  parable.  In  that  case  the  parable 
would  contain  a  prophecy  of  a  corruption  of  Christianity 
through  the  introduction  into  the  Church  of  evil  tendencies, 
doctrinal  and  practical.  But  this  idea  is  precluded  by  the 
simple  consideration  that  it  is  the  kingdom  itself  that  is 
compared  to  leaven.  It  is  also  entirely  out  of  keeping  with 
the  familiar  facts  of  domestic  life  on  which  the  parable  is 
based.  Leaven,  as  used  by  the  housewife,  is  not  an  evil 
thing,  but  a  means  by  which  palatable  food  is  produced  from 
insipid  dough.  If,  indeed,  we  insist  on  introducing  into  the 
interpretation  of  the  parable  our  knowledge  of  the  chemical 
character  of  leaven,  we  may  produce  a  plausible  argument 
in  favour  of  the  opinion  referred  to.  Leaven  is  simply  a 
piece  of  sour  dough  in  which  putrefaction  has  begun,  and 
which,  on  being  introduced  into  fresh  dough,1  produces  by 
contagion  a  similar  condition  in  the  whole  mass.  Now 
putrefaction  is  an  offensive  word,  suggestive  of  a  state  not 
pleasant  to  think  of,  and  we  may  hastily  conclude  that  an 
object  in  which  such  a  state  is  found  is  necessarily  and 
essentially  evil.  But  it  is  not  only  our  privilege,  but  our 
duty,  to  consider  this  parable  of  our  Lord,  not  from  a 
chemical,  but  from  a  popular  point  of  view.  From  that 
point  of  view  we  are  entitled  to  regard  everything  as  good 
which  produces  a  good  effect.  In  studying  this  comparison 
of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  to  leaven  we  must  put  the  putre- 
faction out  of  sight,  and  think  only  of  its  action  in  causing 
the  dough  to  swell,  so  as  to  be  more  accessible  to  the  heat 
of  the  oven,  and  in  imparting  to  it  when  ready  to  be  eaten 
the  palatable  qualities  of  leavened  bread.  We  may  therefore 
dismiss  the  eccentric  notion  in  question  as  unworthy  of  serious 
consideration. 

1  The  relation  between  the  dough  and  the  leaven  is  well  brought  out 
in  the  German  language,  the  names  for  the  two  objects  respectively  being 
Teig  and  Sauerteig. 


io8  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  l 

The  hiding  of  the  leaven  in  the  mass  of  dough  is  a  point 
deserving  special  notice.  The  woman  took  the  leaven,  and 
hid  it1  in  three  measures  of  meal.  The  insertion  of  the 
piece  of  sour  dough  called  leaven  into  the  mass  of  fresh 
dough  is  a  matter  of  course  in  the  physical  process  of  baking, 
but  we  ought  not  on  that  account  to  treat  the  hiding  of  the 
leaven  in  the  parable  as  a  thing  of  no  emblematic  signifi- 
cance. The  word  employed  seems  chosen  with  a  view  to 
provoke  thought.  Does  it  not  point  to  the  silent,  unobserved, 
stealthy  manner  in  which  the  doctrine  of  the  kingdom  was 
introduced  into  the  world  by  the  Son  of  man  ?  In  another 
place  the  Evangelist  quotes  as  descriptive  of  Christ's  manner 
of  carrying  on  His  ministry  the  prophetic  words  :  "  He  shall 
not  strive,  nor  cry;  neither  shall  any  man  hear  his  voice  in 
the  streets."2  The  quotation  is  most  apposite.  Jesus,  as  the 
Founder  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  worked  noiselessly,  as 
the  dew  or  the  light.  The  kingdom,  in  His  hands,  came 
indeed  not  with  observation,  but  in  a  quiet,  inward  manner. 
His  doctrine  dropped  as  the  rain,  and  His  speech  distilled  as 
the  dew ;  as  the  small  rain  upon  the  tender  herb,  and  as  the 
showers  upon  the  grass.  As  the  result  of  His  ministry  of 
grace  and  truth  the  kingdom  was  there,  hidden  in  the  hearts 
of  a  few  simple  fishermen,  tax-gatherers,  and  sinful  women 
turned  from  their  sins ;  and  men  did  not  know,  but  kept 
inquiring  when  the  kingdom  should  come,  not  suspecting  that 
it  was  come  already,  and  was  coming  more  and  more  by  its 
secret  but  powerful  influence  on  human  spirits.  It  is  not 
necessary  in  interpreting  the  parables  to  be  always  asking 
who  is  the  actor — who  is  the  Sower  in  the  first  parable,  or 
who  the  Woman  in  this  one.  A  woman  is  the  actor  in  this 
case  simply  because  the  operation  described  is  woman's 
work.  Yet  one  cannot  help  taking  occasion  from  this  parable 
to  remark  on  the  womanlike  character  of  Christ's  ministry. 
No  masculine  ambitions  or  passions  are  noticeable  there,  but 
only  the  quiet,  incessant,  patient,  retiring  industry  of  one  who 
is  never  in  a  hurry  and  yet  never  idle ;  who  is  content  with 
his  limited,  obscure  sphere,  and  utterly  indifferent  to  the  stir 

i  Iviicpvipiv,  Matt.  xiii.  33,  found  only  here  in  N.  T.    The  corresponding 
word  in  Luke  is  tKpv^tv, 
2  Matt.  xii.  19. 


CH.  iv. J  The  Leaven.  109 

and  strife  of  the  great  world  without.  "  My  kingdom  is  not 
of  this  world,"1  He  says  to  Pilate,  provoking  from  the  worldly- 
minded  governor  a  smile  at  His  simplicity.  His  brethren, 
seeing  His  works  in  Galilee,  say  to  Him :  "Depart  hence,  and 
go  into  Judaea,  that  Thy  disciples  also  may  see  the  works  that 
Thou  doest.  For  there  is  no  man  that  doeth  anything  in 
secret,  and  he  himself  seeketh  to  be  known  openly.  If  Thou 
do  these  things,  show  Thyself  to  the  world."2  But  Jesus  has 
no  desire  to  advertise  Himself  into  celebrity  in  Jerusalem,  the 
seat  of  government  and  of  religious  ceremonial,  but  is  content 
to  remain  in  the  northern  province,  busily  occupied  in  that 
humble  but  congenial  sphere  in  inserting  the  leaven  of  His 
doctrine  into  the  susceptible  minds  which  yield  themselves  to 
His  influence.  It  is  not  that  His  doctrine  is  esoteric,  or  that 
any  cunning  or  cowardice  characterises  his  method  of  working. 
He  could  say  with  perfect  truth,  as  He  did  say  at  His  trial 
to  the  high  priest :  "  I  spake  openly  to  the  world  ;  I  ever 
taught  in  the  synagogue,  and  in  the  temple,  whither  the  Jews 
always  resort ;  and  in  secret  have  I  said  nothing." 3  But 
while  His  doctrine  was  open  and  not  cryptic,  His  spirit  was 
humble  and  wise.  He  loved  quiet,  unostentatious  ways  of 
working,  and  He  believed  that  these  would  in  the  long  run 
prove  the  most  effective.  The  words  of  the  kingdom,  hid  in 
the  hearts  of  a  few  babes,  would  work  there  like  a  leaven,  till 
it  resulted  in  their  illumination  and  sanctification  ;  and  from 
them  it  would  be  communicated  by  contagion  to  others,  till 
the  little  leavened  mass  had  leavened  the  whole  lump  of 
Jewish  and  even  pagan  humanity.  In  his  intercessory  prayer 
Jesus  offered  up  for  the  eleven  disciples  this  petition :  "  I  have 
given  them  Thy  word.  .  .  Sanctify  them  through  Thy 
truth :  Thy  word  is  truth.  As  Thou  hast  sent  Me  into  the 
world,  even  so  have  I  also  sent  them  into  the  world." 4  The 
words  are  a  brief  but  luminous  commentary  on  our  parable, 
viewed  as  a  figurative  description  of  our  Lord's  own  ministry 
and  its  aim.  He  taught  His  disciples  the  doctrine  of  the 
kingdom ;  through  that  doctrine,  by  the  blessing  of  the 
Divine  Spirit,  they  were  at  length  sanctified  ;  and  when  their 
minds  had  been  duly  enlightened,  and  their  hearts  filled  with 

1  John  xviii.  36.  *  John  vii.  3,  4. 

■  John  xviii.  201.  *  John  xvii.  14,  17,  iS. 


no  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  i, 

the  grace  of  the  kingdom,  they  became  through  their  words 
and  their  lives  a  leaven  to  the  world. 

Till  the  whole  was  leavened:  That  is  another  point  in  the 
parable  demanding  particular  attention.  The  question 
naturally  arises,  what  is  the  '  whole '  referred  to  ?  In  the 
parable  it  is  the  three  measures  of  meal,  which  seems  from 
an  induction  of  Scripture  instances,1  to  have  been  the  usual 
quantity  prepared  for  use  at  one  time,  amounting  to  rather 
more  than  four  English  pecks.  But  is  this  all  that  is  to  be 
said  ?  have  the  three  measures  no  emblematic  significance  ? 
is  the  number  simply  a  part  of  the  natural  realism  of  the 
parable  ?  It  is  hard  to  reconcile  ourselves  to  such  conclusions, 
especially  considering  the  tempting  analogies  suggested  by 
the  three  measures.  If  we  think  of  the  individual  man  as 
the  subject  of  the  leavening  process,  we  have  answering  to 
the  three  measures,  the  three  parts  of  human  nature,  body, 
soul,  and  spirit,  as  the  subjects  of  sanctification  ;  the  renewing 
process  commencing  at  the  centre,  the  spirit,  passing  through 
the  soul  with  all  its  affections  and  faculties,  and  at  length 
reaching  the  circumference  of  the  man,  the  body  with  its 
appetites  and  habits.  If  we  think  of  man  collectively,  the 
number  three  repeats  itself  under  all  the  various  aspects  from 
which  we  regard  the  subject  of  the  leavening  process. 
Viewing  man  socially,  there  are  the  three  forms  of  social 
existence,  the  family,  the  Church,  the  State;  viewing  him 
ethnographically,  there  are  the  three  sons  of  Noah — Shem, 
Ham,  and  Japheth — from  which  all  nations  of  the  earth  have 
descended.  To  some  minds  the  main  fact  that  the  number 
three  re-appears  under  so  many  diverse  forms  will  seem  con- 
clusive evidence  that  it  was  designed  to  have  emblematic 
significance,  while  to  others  the  circumstance  that  the  number 
admits  of  so  many  interpretations  will  go  far  to  show  that 
none  of  them  was  intended.  In  such  questions  men  are  very 
apt  to  be  influenced  by  their  temperament,  and  in  absence 
of  conclusive  evidence  either  way  it  is  becoming  to  abstain 
from  over-confident  dogmatism.  A  man  of  matter-of-fact 
juristic  mind,  like  Grotius,  will   prefer  the   severely   literal, 

1  Conf.  Gen.  xviii.  6 ;  Judges  vi.  19 ;  1  Sam.  i.  24.  An  ephah  was 
equal  to  three  seahs,  so  that  the  quantity  in  all  three  instances  was  the 
same. 


ch.  iv.J  The  Leaven.  ill 

prosaic  interpretation,1  while  a  dreamy,  idealistic  comment- 
ator, like  Lange,  will  as  certainly  incline  to  the  allegorical ; 
and  it  would  be  presumptuous  in  us  to  decide  authoritatively 
between  them.  We  will  not  therefore  say  positively  that  the 
idealists  are  right,  though  our  sympathies  are  with  them,  nor 
lay  it  down  as  a  certain  truth  that  the  three  measures  repre- 
sent the  world,  and  that  this  parable  is  one  of  those  utterances 
of  Christ  in  which  the  universal  destination  of  the  Gospel  is 
clearly  taught.  We  may,  however,  without  presumption  say 
this  much,  that  leaven  is  one  of  the  three  symbols  employed 
by  our  Lord  to  represent  the  action  of  His  kingdom  in  the 
world,  and  that  in  the  other  two  instances  that  action  is 
expressly  represented  as  having  relation  to  the  whole  world. 
The  three  symbols  are  leaven^  salt,  and  light.  We  find  the 
latter  two  employed  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  both  in  a 
universalistic  way.  Of  His  disciples  as  the  children  of  the 
kingdom,  animated  by  its  spirit,  enlightened  by  its  truth, 
Jesus  there  says,  "  Ye  are  the  salt  of  the  earth.  Ye  are  the 
light  of  the  world."  2  If,  therefore,  He  had  said,  "  Ye  are  the 
leaven  of  the  world,"  it  would  only  have  been  a  statement  of 
the  same  kind,  in  perfect  sympathy  with  His  teaching  in  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount ;  and  it  is  at  least  probable  that  He 
meant  to  suggest  such  a  thought  by  expressly  naming  three 
measures  of  meal  as  the  amount  to  be  leavened.3  To  this 
view  it  may  appear  an  objection  that  the  whole,  whatever  it  is, 
is  represented  as  being  leavened,  so  that  if  the  whole  signify 
the  whole  world  of  mankind  at  large,  the  parable  teaches  not 
merely  the  universal  destination  of  the  Gospel  as  a  message 
to  every  human  creature,  but  the  ultimate  universal  salvation 
of  all  men.  Without  entering  here  into  that  question,  we 
simply  observe  that  this  is  pressing  the  words  beyond  what 
they  can  bear.  Assuming  that  our  Lord  has  in  view  the 
world  as  the  subject  of  the  leavening  process,  we  must  take 
His  words  as  a  broad  statement  of  tendency,  not  as  an  exact 
statement  of  the  historical  result.  The  three  statements,  Ye 
are  the  salt  of  the  earth,  Ye  are  the  light  of  the  world,  and 

1  2&ra  rpia :  tantum  enim  simul  misceri  solebat. —  Vide  his '  Annotationes. 

»  Matt.  v.  1%  14. 

•  This  view  commended  itself  to  the  sound  exegetical  judgment  of 
BengeL  He  says  :  Videtur  hoc  pertinere  ad  totum  genus  humanum,  quod 
refert  tria  satay  ex  tribus  Noachi  filiis  propagatum  in  orbe  terrse. 


lift  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  i 

the  one  implied  in  this  parable,  Ye  are  the  leaven  of  the 
world,  must  all  be  interpreted  in  one  way,  as  indicating 
function  and  not  effect.  Doubtless  we  have  in  the  case  of  the 
leaven  what  we  have  not  in  the  case  of  the  other  two  emblems, 
an  express  declaration  as  to  the  effect.  The  process  goes  on 
till  the  whole  is  leavened.  But  the  purpose  of  the  declaration 
is  to  indicate  the  nature  of  the  leaven,  which  is  to  work  on 
incessantly  till  it  has  more  or  less  infected  the  whole  mass  in 
which  it  has  been  deposited  ;  *  and  in  this  respect  leaven  is  a 
very  apt  emblem  of  Christian  truth,  or  indeed  of  any  spiritual 
influence  whatsoever.  It  is  the  tendency  of  all  spiritual  influ- 
ence, good  or  evil,  to  diffuse  itself  more  and  more  throughout 
society  till  its  presence  can  be  traced  in  a  greater  or  less 
extent  eveiywhere.  And  it  may  be  granted  that  in  some 
sense,  and  to  some  extent,  it  is  the  destination  of  Christianity 
to  pervade  the  whole  of  society,  and  to  influence  in  some 
way,  and  to  certain  effects,  the  whole  human  race.  But  it 
does  not  follow  that  the  leavening  process  must  in  all  cases 
be  complete  and  thorough.  A  given  quantity  of  leaven  will 
not  leaven  thoroughly  any  lump  of  dough  however  large,  but 
only  the  mass  which  is  in  proportion  to  its  amount.2  It 
would  influence  a  larger  mass  more  or  less,  as  a  piece  of 
sugar  would  tend  to  sweeten  a  whole  river  of  water,  or  a 
candle  tend  to  illuminate  the  whole  world.  We  do  not 
presume  to  prescribe  limits  to  the  influence  of  Christianity, 
we  simply  enter  a  caveat  against  too  sweeping  inferences  from 
the  words  of  our  parable.  The  doctrine  there  taught  is  that 
it  is  the  genius  of  the  kingdom  of  God  to  work  outwards  from 
the  centre,  where  it  is  first  deposited,  towards  the  circum- 
ference. It  is  a  doctrine  which  justifies  large  hopes  in  refer- 
ence to  the  elevation  of  the  individual,  and  to  the  imbuing  of 
society  and  the  world  at  large  with  Christian  principle.  But 
these  hopes  must  be  qualified  by  the  recollection  that  Chris- 
tianity does  not  raise  even   all   individuals   who   receive   it 

i  Stier  ('  Reden  Jesu  ')  says  that  SXov  is  equivalent  to  8\<oc,  and  gives  as 
alternative  renderings  of  the  words  tue  o5  e£v/no0»j  okov,  till  the  whole  meal 
was  leavened,  or  till  the  meal  was  wholly  leavened.  But  whether  8W  be 
taken  adverbially  or  otherwise,  the  statement  must  be  understood  quanti- 
tatively, not  qualitatively. 

»  The  universalistic  interpretation  is  objected  to  by  Hofmann, ■  Dai 
Evangelium  des  Lukas.' 


ch.  iv.]  The  Leaven.  113 

to  the  same  moral  level,  and  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  has 
not  found  all  peoples  equally  amenable  to  its  influence.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  children  of  the  kingdom  ought  not  to 
allow  such  considerations  to  depress  their  spirits,  or  to  make 
them  settle  down  contentedly  in  the  conviction  that  it  is  only 
a  few  that  are  to  be  saved,  and  that  all  attempts  to  save 
others  are  vain.  They  are  the  elect  of  God,  it  is  true,  called 
out  of  the  world.  But  they  must  remember  that  they  have 
not  been  called  for  their  own  sakes  merely,  but  for  the  sake 
of  others.  They  are  called  to  be  the  salt  of  the  earth,  the 
light  of  the  world,  the  leaven  of  humanity,  and  they  should 
ever  live  under  the  inspiring  influence  of  their  high  vocation, 
seeking  earnestly  and  always  two  things,  the  perfect  sanctifi- 
cation  of  their  own  characters  that  their  influence  on  others 
for  good  may  be  as  great  as  possible,  and  the  conversion  of 
the  whole  world  to  the  Christian  faith.  It  was,  in  all  proba- 
bility, to  inspire  this  mind  that  Jesus  spake  this  parable  to 
His  disciples.  He  desired  the  small  band  of  followers  who 
had  received  His  doctrine,  especially  the  twelve,  to  entertain 
large  expectations  as  to  what  might  be  accomplished  through 
their  instrumentality.  He  said  to  them  in  effect  :  Ye  are  but 
a  little  leaven  hid  in  the  bosom  of  the  world,  so  small  in  bulk 
that  men  are  scarce  aware  of  your  existence.  But,  remember, 
a  little  leaven  can  leaven  a  large  lump.  See  that  you  under- 
value not  your  importance  as  the  leavened  portion  of  the 
lump  of  humanity,  through  which  the  rest  is  to  be  leavened. 
Fear  not,  the  future  is  yours ;  it  is  your  Father's  pleasure  to 
give  you  in  ample  measure  the  kingdom.  I  have  chosen  and 
ordained  you  that  ye  should  go  and  bring  forth  fruit.  Aim 
at  bringing  forth  much  fruit,  for  that  is  not  impossible.  In 
the  light  of  this  paraphrase  we  can  see  that  the  parable  of  the 
Leaven  is,  equally  with  that  of  the  Mustard  Seed,  admirably 
fitted  to  inspire  hope  even  in  the  day  of  small  things  and 
obscure,  uninfluential  beginnings. 

The  foregoing  are  the  principal  points  in  the  parable 
which  call  for  notice.  The  following  thoughts,  suggested 
rather  than  taught  therein,  we  append  to  illustrate  a  feature 
of  the  Parables  to  which  we  will  have  frequent  occasion  to 
refer,  and  which  we  may  call  their  felicity. 

When  we  recall  the  etymological  meaning  of  the  Greek 

I 


114  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [[book  u 

word  for  leaven,  and  of  its  Latin  and  English  equivalents, 
all  three — Cvfxr],  fermentum,  leaven x — pointing  to  the  effect 
of  the  substance  denoted  in  causing  upheaving  and  ferment- 
ation in  the  mass  in  which  it  is  deposited,  we  are  naturally 
led  to  reflect  on  the  analogous  action  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  upon  those  with  whom  it  comes  into  contact.  For 
there  is  a  real  analogy  at  this  point.  Where  the  truth  of 
the  kingdom  comes  with  power,  whether  in  the  individual  or 
in  society,  it  produces  a  moral  fermentation,  and  the  amount 
of  fermentation  it  produces  is  the  measure  of  its  influence. 
The  more  stir  it  causes  in  the  heart  and  mind  and  conscience, 
the  more  completely  does  it  ultimately  bring  every  thought  into 
captivity  to  the  obedience  of  Christ.  Christ  Himself  referred 
to  the  tendency  of  His  teaching  to  act  as  a  ferment  in  society 
when  He  said  :  "  Suppose  ye  that  I  am  come  to  give  peace  on 
earth  ?  I  tell  you,  nay  ;  but  rather  division :  for  from  henceforth 
there  shall  be  five  in  one  house  divided,  three  against  two,  and 
two  against  three.  The  father  shall  be  divided  against  the  son, 
and  the  son  against  the  father  ;  the  mother  against  the  daughter, 
and  the  daughter  against  the  mother  ;  the  mother-in-law  against 
her  daughter-in-law,  and  the  daughter-in-law  against  her 
mother-in-law."2  Nor  is  the  fermenting  process,  so  graphic- 
ally described  in  its  social  aspect,  confined  to  the  family  or 
the  community ;  it  goes  on  in  the  bosom  of  every  believing 
man.  The  new  life  of  the  kingdom  not  only  divides  a 
country  or  a  house  against  itself;  it  divides  a  man  against 
himself,  so  that  a  man's  foes  shall  be  not  only  they  of  his 
own  household,  but  even  his  very  self — the  old  man  fighting 
against  the  new  man,  the  natural  desires  and  affections 
resisting  the  claim  of  the  kingdom  to  the  place  of  sovereignty 
in  the  heart.  Such  fermenting  processes  in  individual  ex- 
perience and  in  the  history  of  nations  are  by  no  means 
pleasant  to  pass  through,  but  they  are  the  price  that  has  to 
be  paid  for  sanctified  character,  and  for  Christian  civilisation. 
On  no  other  terms  can  these  precious  blessings  be  obtained. 

The  comparison  of  the   kingdom  of    heaven   to    leaven, 
duly  reflected  on,  might  serve  to  correct  crude  notions  as  to 

>  Zvpii,  from  #w,  to  boil;  fermentum,  contracted  from  fervimentam, 
from  ferveo ;  leaven,  from  levare,  to  lift  up. 
»  Luke  xii.  51,  53. 


ch.  iv.]  The  Leaven.  115 

the  effect  of  regeneration  and  sanctification  on  human  nature. 
Judging  from  the  artificial,  unnatural  character  which  the 
profession  of  religion  sometimes  engenders,  it  would  almost 
seem  as  if,  in  the  opinion  of  many,  the  new  birth  and  the 
new  life  produced  by  Christian  faith  involved  the  extirpation 
at  once  of  the  common  characteristics  of  human  nature,  and 
of  the  idiosyncrasies  of  the  individual.  But  this  ought  not 
to  be  the  case  if  the  kingdom  of  heaven  be  indeed  like 
leaven.  For  leaven  does  not  destroy  the  characteristics  of 
meal  in  general,  or  the  peculiarities  of  particular  kinds  of 
meal.  It  leaves  the  leavened  meal  essentially  as  it  found  it, 
and  there  is  no  difficulty  in  distinguishing  one  sort  of  leavened 
meal  from  another,  wheat  from  barley,  and  barley  from  rye.1 
Naturalness  is  a  mark  of  Christian  maturity,  the  sign  of  a 
completed  sanctification.  In  saying  this  we  do  not  mean  to 
condemn  everything  savouring  of  artificiality  in  religion  as 
spurious  and  hypocritical.  Here  again  our  parable  is  helpful 
in  checking  onesidedness.  There  is  a  stage  when  the  dough, 
in  which  leaven  has  been  deposited,  seems  unlike  itself,  viz. 
when  it  is  passing  through  the  upheaving  process  of  ferment- 
ation. In  like  manner  we  ought  not  to  expect  either  natural- 
ness or  geniality  in  a  Christian  when  he  is  in  the  fermenting 
stage  of  the  spiritual  life.  His  experiences  then  are  not 
pleasant  to  himself ;  why  should  we  be  surprised  if  they  be 
still  more  unpalatable  to  others  ?  Wait  till  the  fermenting 
process  and  the  baking  process  are  complete,  and  then  see 
how  the  bread  tastes.  If  the  character  of  a  Christian  pos- 
sesses the  charm  of  sweetness  when  the  process  of  sanctifi- 
cation is  complete,  we  have  no  right  to  complain  that  it  does 
not  exhibit  it  sooner, — which,  however,  many  do,  for  want  of 
due  consideration  of  such  analogies  as  that  suggested  in  this 
parable,  and,  we  may  add,  in  the  parable  next  to  be  studied, 
that  of  the  Blade,  the  Green  Ear,  and  the  Ripe  Corn. 

Finally,  one  in  quest  of  arguments  to  prove  the  super- 
natural character  of  Christianity  might  easily  found  one 
upon  our  parable.  The  leaven  is  a  thing  extraneous  to  the 
meal.     The  woman  took  it  from  another  place  and  put  it 

1  u  The  meal,  although  leavened  in  all  parts,  retains  after,  as  before, 
its  own  distinctive  character  ('Art  und  Gattung '), according  as  it  is  barley, 
rye,  or  wheat  meaL"  — Arndt. 

12 


Ii6  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  i. 

into  the  dough,  to  produce  effects  which  the  dough  itself 
could  never  bring  about.  In  like  manner,  it  might  be  argued, 
it  has  often  been  argued,  the  kingdom  of  heaven  was 
brought  down  from  above,  from  heaven,  by  the  Son  of  God, 
and  deposited  in  the  lump  of  humanity,  there  to  produce 
moral  results,  which  human  nature  by  itself  unaided  is 
utterly  incompetent  to  achieve.  That  the  doctrine  is  true 
needs  no  elaborate  proof;  its  truth  is  attested  by  the  ex- 
perience of  individual  Christians,  as  well  as  by  a  comparative 
study  of  the  effects  produced  in  the  world  at  large  by  Christi- 
anity on  the  one  hand,  and  by  all  other  religions  on  the 
other.  That  it  was  Christ's  purpose  to  teach  this  doctrine, 
or  either  of  the  two  preceding,  when  He  uttered  this  parable 
of  the  Leaven,  we  cannot  positively  affirm.  But  if  these 
important  lessons  do  not  belong  to  the  primary  didactic  drift 
of  the  parable,  they  do  at  least  attest  its  felicity ;  for  surely 
a  parable  must  be  admitted  to  be  felicitously  constructed 
which  suggests  so  much  beyond  what  it  expressly  teaches. 


f-    u 


7a«    ^cc****** 


CHAPTER   V. 

THE    BLADE,    THE    EAR,   AND    THE    FULL    CORNt 
OR,    GROWTH    IN    THE    KINGDOM    GRADUAL   AND    SLOW. 

In  the  culture  of  grain  there  are  two  busy  seasons,  the  seed 
time  and  the  harvest.  Between  the  sowing  and  the  reaping 
intervenes  a  period  of  comparative  inactivity,  during  which 
the  husbandman  is  very  much  a  mere  spectator  looking  on 
while  the  earth  bringeth  forth  fruit  of  herself,  first  the  blade, 
then  the  ear,  and  finally  the  full  ripe  corn  in  the  ear.  Is  there 
any  analogy,  one  naturally  asks,  in  this  respect  between  the 
kingdom  of  nature  and  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ?  The  Great 
Teacher  gives  us  to  understand  that  there  is.     Jesus  said : 

So  is  the  kingdom  of  God  as  if  a  man  should  cast  the  seed  into  the  ground, 
and  shoula  sleep  and  rise,  night  and  day,  and  the  seed  should  spring 
and  grow,  how  knoweth  not  he.1  Spontaneously  the  earth  bringeth 
forth  fruit,  first  blade,  then  ear,  then  is  full  corn  in  the  ear.%  But 
when  the  fruit  permits,3  immediately  he  putteth  forthK  the  sidle, 
because  the  harvest  is  at  hand. — Mark  iv.  26 — 29. 

1  On  this  clause  vide  remarks  at  p.  124. 

1  The  true  reading  seems  to  be  7rX//f>rjc  olroq,  Ian  being  understood. 
The  reading  in  the  T.  R.,  irA>jp»j  mrov,  has  all  the  appearance  of  a 
grammatical  correction  by  scribes.  The  R.  V.,  however,  retains  it,  also 
Westcott  and  Hort,  who  think  that  all  the  variations  would  be  accounted 
for  if  the  original  reading  were  rXf/pqc  alrov,  irXriprjC  being  indeclinable  in 
the  accusative,  as  "in  all  good  MSS.  of  Acts  vi.  5  except  B."  For  the 
import  of  the  change  of  construction  vide  the  exposition. 

'  That  is,  by  being  ripe.  This  rendering  of  vapaSoi  (or  vapaSa)  is 
suggested  by  Meyer  and  approved  by  Weiss  ('  Das  Markus-Evangelium,'p. 
1 59), Bleek  ('  Synoptische  Erklarung '),  Bisping  ('  Exegetisches  Handbuch '), 
and  Volkmar  ('  Die  Evangelien,'  p.  289).  The  rendering  can  be  justified 
from  classical  usage.     Meyer  cites  the  expression  1%  upas  wapafoSoiow— 

•  See  next  page  for  Note. 


u8  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  u 

According  to  a  recent  writer,  the  didactic  aim  of  this  parable 
was  to  teach  the  disciples  not  to  expect  the  complete  develop 
ment  of  the  new  life  springing  out  of  the  word  of  the  kingdom, 
as  the  result  of  the  exercise  of  an  external  power  on  the  part 
of  the  Messiah,  but  rather  to  regard  it  as  a  problem  for  the 
spontaneous  moral  activity  of  the  believing  hearer.1  This, 
however,  is  by  no  means  the  whole,  or  even  the  chief,  doctrinal 
significance  of  the  parable.  It  is  meant  to  teach  a  doctrine 
of  passivity  not  merely  with  reference  to  Christ,  the  First 
J  Sower  of  the  word,  but  al'so  with  reference  to  those  whose 
minds  are  the  soil  into  which  the  seed  of  truth  is  cast ;  a 
doctrine  to  the  effect  that  growth  in  the  kingdom  proceeds 
spontaneously  by  fixed  laws,  over  which  the  subject  of  growth 
has  little  or  no  control.  Of  course,  in  uttering  a  paedble  of 
this  import,  Jesus  did  not  mean  to  teach  that  men  have 
nothing  whatever  to  do  in  the  way  of  promoting  growth  in 
themselves  and  others.  In  proof  of  this  it  is  enough  to  refer 
to  the  parable  of  the  Sower,  in  which  total  or  partial  failure 
of  the  spiritual  crop  in  certain  cases  is  attributed  to  preventible 
causes,  such  as  the  cares  of  life,  the  deceitfulness  of  riches, 
and  the  lusts  of  other  things.  And  even  without  the  aid  of 
that  parable  we  might  have  been  sure  that  it  could  not  be  the 
intention  of  Christ  to  teach  a  doctrine  which  would  encourage 
men  in  vices  to  which  they  are  only  too  prone,  viz.  indolence, 
indifference,  and  thoughtless  security.  But  why  then,  it  may 
be  asked,  speak  a  parable  which  even  seems  to  look  that 
way  ?    To  check  vices  of  a  different  description  to  which  men 

the  season  of  the  year  permitting,  from  Polybius,  22,  24, 9.  The  majority 
of  commentators  prefer  the  rendering,  "  when  the  fruit  yields  "  (supple. 
iavrov),  a  sense  of  the  word  for  which  no  certain  voucher  can  be  cited 
from  Greek  authors,  but  to  which  a  parallel  can  be  cited  from  Latin,  e.  g. 
the  line  :  Multa  adeo  gelidd  melius  se  node  dederunt,  from  Virgil's 
Georgics,  I.  287.  Unger  ('  De  Parabolarum  Jesu  natura,  interpretatione, 
usu,' p.  no)  alludes  to  a  similar  usage  in  the  German  language.  In  a 
note  he  remarks  :  Verbum  vexatum  neque  cum  Fritsch.  suppleverim  voce 
iavrov,  neque  cum  Winero,  Otpiaftov  vel  Katpov,  sed  voce  olrov  vel  grana, 
quam  quidem  nostrates  etiam  ita  omittunt,  ut  tanquam  verbum  impersonale 
dicant :  es  giebt  her. 

4  So  in  R.  V.,  and  approved  by  Dr.  Field,  ('  Otium  Norvicense,'  pars 
Tertia).      He  refers  to  Joel  iii.  13,  where  the  verb  occurs  in  the  Sept 

as  =  ^W,  which  means  not  only  to  send  but  to  put  forth,  as  the  hand. 
1  GoebeL 


ch.  v.}    The  Blade,  tlie  Ear,  and  the  Full  Corn.    119 

of  earnest  spirit  are  prone.  Active  devoted  labourers  in  the  \  </ 
kingdom  are  tempted  to  exaggerate  their  own  importance  as 
instruments;  they  are  apt  in  a  busybody  spirit  to  interfere 
when  it  were  wiser  to  stand  still  and  see  God  work ;  they  are 
prone  to  despondency  if  they  see  not  immediate  results,  and 
to  impatience  when  they  discover  how  slowly  growth  in  the 
kingdom  proceeds  onward  towards  its  consummation.  And 
Jesus  desired  by  this  parable  to  check  such  evil  tendencies  in 
His  disciples,  and  to  foster  in  them  the  virtues  of  humility, 
dependence,  faith,  and  patience. 

That  this  parabolic  gem,  so  natural  and  so  significant, 
should  be  found  only  in  Mark,  is  one  of  the  surprises  of  the 
Gospel  history.  But  we  are  not  therefore  to  doubt  either  its 
genuineness  or  its  importance.  It  is  evidently  a  genuine 
logion  of  Jesus,  and  one  too  at  first  hand,  in  its  original  form, 
not  a  modification  of  some  other  parable  such  as  that  of  the 
Tares.1  It  is  also  a  parable  of  great  didactic  value,  indispens- 
able to  a  full  doctrine  concerning  the  nature  of  the  Divine 
kingdom,  and  of  much  practical  utility  to  its  citizens.  How 
important  to  know  what  to  expect  in  reference  to  the  growth 
of  the  seed  of  the  Word,  whether  in  the  individual  or  in  the 
community,  to  prevent  Christians  being  scandalised  when 
things  turn  out  altogether  contrary  to  expectation!  None 
the  less  important  is  the  parable,  that  it  proclaims  a  truth 
men  are  slow  to  understand  or  be  reconciled  to ;  a  fact 
whereof  we  have  sufficient  evidence  in  the  way  in  which  this 
portion  of  Christ's  parabolic  teaching  has  often  been  handled. 

1  So  Hilgenfeld  after  Strauss ;  vide  his  '  Einleitung  in  Das  neue  Testa- 
ment,'p.  516.  Volkmar  ('Die  Evangelien,'  p.  288),  on  the  other  hand, 
holds  Mark's  parable  to  be  an  original  utterance  of  Jesus  which  Matthew 
could  not  accept  without  modification  ;  the  necessary  transformation  being 
supplied  in  the  parable  of  the  Tares.  With  him  agrees  Holtzman, '  Die 
Syaoptische  Evangelien,'  p.  107.  These  differences  of  opinion  are  con- 
nected with  the  views  entertained  by  the  writers  as  to  the  order  of  time  in 
which  the  Gospels  were  written  ;  Hilgenfeld  contending  for  the  priority 
of  Matthew,  Volkmar  and  Holtzman  for  the  priority  of  Mark.  Volkmar 
represents  the  three  parables  of  the  Sower,  the  Mustard,  and  the  Seed 
growing  gradually,  as  an  original  group  which  together  teach  the  spiritu- 
ality of  the  kingdom.  Neander  remarks:  "This  parable  wears  the 
undeniable  stamp  of  originality  both  in  its  matter  and  form ;  so  that  wo 
cannot  consider  it  as  a  variation  of  one  of  the  other  parables  of  the  growing 
seed,"     '  Life  of  Christ,'  Bonn's  Edition,  p.  346. 


J 


1 20  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  L 

The  law  of  growth  in  the  spiritual  world  not  bd'ng  duly  laid 
to  heart,  has  therefore  not  been  found  here;  and  the  parable 
consequently  has  been  misinterpreted,  or  rather  scarcely 
interpreted  at  all.  Few  of  our  Lord's  parables  have  been 
more  unsatisfactorily  expounded,  as  there  are  few  in  which  a 
right  exposition  is  more  to  be  desired  for  the  good  of  believers. 
It  may  seem  presumptuous  to  say  this,  by  implication  censur- 
ing our  brethren  and  commending  ourselves.  But  a  man's 
capacity  to  expound  particular  portions  of  Scripture  depends 
largely  on  the  peculiarities  of  his  religious  experience ;  for 
here  as  in  other  spheres,  it  holds  true  that  we  find  what  we 
bring.  Suppose,  e.g.,  that  the  experience  of  a  particular 
Christian  has  made  him  intimately  acquainted  with  the 
momentous  business  of  waiting  on  God  for  good  earnestly 
desired  and  long  withheld.  The  natural  result  will  be  an 
open  eye  for  all  Scripture  texts,  and  they  are  many,  which 
speak  of  that  exercise,  and  a  ready  insight  into  their  meaning. 
The  case  supposed  is  the  writer's  own,  and  therefore  the 
parable  now  to  be  studied  has  been  to  him  for  many  years  a 
favourite  subject  of  thought  and  fruitful  source  of  comfort, 
viewed  as  a  repetition  in  parabolic  form  of  the  Psalmist's 
counsel :    Wait,  I  say,  on  the  Lord} 

In  this  light  we  have  ever  regarded  this  parable.  That  the 
progress  of  growth  in  the  Divine  kingdom,  in  all  spheres,  is 
such  as  to  call  for  waiting,  being  gradual  and  slow,  and  fixed 
down  to  law,  seems  to  us  its  scope  and  burden.  Hence  our 
title  for  the  parable,  the  blade,  the  ear,  and  the  full  corn,  which 
suggests  progress  according  to  natural  law,  and  by  stages 
J  which  must  be  passed  through  in  succession,  none  being  over- 
leapt.  And  though  it  is  often  true  that  there  is  little  in 
a  name,  in  this  case  we  deem  it  important  to  direct  attention 
even  to  the  title.  For  the  title  usually  given  to  this  parable 
in  English  books  is  unfortunate,  as  tending  to  set  the  mind 
off  on  a  wrong  tack.  It  is,  The  seed  growing  secretly,  which 
emphasises  a  true  but  subordinate  feature  in  the  parable,  with 
most  pernicious  effect  upon  the  interpretation.  In  illustration 
of  the  mischief  wrought  by  this  falsely-placed  emphasis,  we 
may  refer  to  the  fact  that  Greswell  treats  the  part  of  the 
parable  which  describes  the  spontaneous  growth  of  grain 2  a* 
1  Psalm  xxvii.  14.  *  Ver.  28. 


ch.  v.J   The  Blade,  the  Ear,  and  the  Full  Corn.    121 

a  parenthesis}'  though  that  it  is  in  reality  the  very  kernel 'is 
sufficiently  shown  by  the  deliberate  and  pointed  enumeration 
of  the  stages  through  which  the  grain  has  to  pass.8  Equally 
instructive  illustrations  may  be  found  in  the  pages  of  Trench 
and  Arnot,  whose  exceptionally  meagre  discussions  are  mainly 
devoted  to  the  question,  Who  is  the  person  who  sows  the 
seed,  Christ,  or  an  ordinary  minister  of  the  word  ? — a  question 
which  the  very  opening  of  the  parable  shows  to  be  altogether 
unimportant ;  the  formula,  "  So  is  it  with  the  kingdom  of 
God,"  signalising  the  fact  that  the  agent  is  not  in  this  case  the 
centre — that  the  stress  lies  not  on  the  person,  but  on  the 
objective  facts  of  the  case.8  The  former  of  these  two  writers 
finds  himself  in  a  dilemma  on  the  point,  from  which  he 
frankly  confesses  he  "  can  see  no  perfectly  satisfactory  way  of 
escape."4  His  perplexity  is  caused  by  the  twofold  statement 
concerning  the  husbandman,  that  he  knoweth  not  how  the 
grain  grows,  and  that  he  putteth  in  the  sickle  when  the  grain 
is  ripe,  the  former  appearing  to  the  writer  not  to  suit  Christ, 
and  the  latter  to  suit  Him  alone.  The  Scotch  commentator, 
on  the  other  hand,  finds  an  escape  from  the  dilemma  by 
denying  what  the  English  commentator  had  assumed,  viz. 
that  the  "  reaping  means  the  closing  of  all  accounts  in  the 
Great  Day,"  which  makes  it  "  the  exclusive  prerogative  of  the 
Lord  ;"  and  maintaining  that  it  rather  means  the  ingathering 
of  souls  in  conversion,  a  function  within  the  competency  ol 
ordinary  ministers  of  the  word.8  If  the  harvest  consist  in 
conversions,  one  naturally  wonders  what  is  to  be  understood 
by  the  appearing  of  the  blade !  It  is  surprising  that  writers 
who  are  driven  to  such  shifts,  or  who  have  to  confess  them- 
selves shiftless,  should  not  be  led  by  their  perplexities  to 
suspect  that  they  have  missed  their  way  altogether  in  the 
exposition  of  the  parable.6     Such  unquestionably  is  the  fact 

1  'The  Parables,'  vol.  ii.  p.  125. 

•  So  Weiss,  'Das  Markus-Evangelium,' p.  159. 

•  So  Nippold,  '  Die  Gleichnisse  Jesu  von  der  Wachsenden  Saat,  vora 
grossen  Abendmahl,  und  vom  Sterbenden  Weitzenkorn,'  p.  12. 

•  'Notes  on  the  Parables,'  p.  290. 

•  'The  Parables  of  our  Lord,'  p.  316. 

•  Still  another  instance  of  the  perplexity  produced  by  the  false  point 
of  view  from  which  the  parable  has  been  contemplated,  may  be  found  ia 
the  suggestion  of  Grotius  that  o6k  oUiv  avrSt  should  be  rendered  it,  i.  * 


122  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  i, 

These  idle,  barren  discussions  as  to  the  agent  in  the  parable 
all  arise  from  misapprehending  the  main  point,  which  we 
repeat  is  not  the  secretness  of  the  growth,  but  its  gradualness 
in  accordance  with  natural  law.  The  key  to  the  interpretation 
is  to  be  found,  not  in  the  expression  "  he  knoweth  not  how," 
but  in  the  statement  that  "  the  earth  bringeth  forth  fruit  of 
herself,  first  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  after  that  the  full  corn  in 
the  ear."  The  truth  of  this  assertion  will  appear  from  a 
cursory  examination  of  the  leading  clauses  of  the  parable. 

The  first  point  to  be  noticed  is  the  description  of  the 
farmer's  behaviour  after  he  has  finished  the  work  of  seed- 
sowing.  And  should  sleep  and  rise,  night  and  day.  It  is  not 
to  be  supposed  that  these  words  serve  no  purpose  except  to 
give  verisimilitude  and  picturesqueness  to  the  parable ;  they 
are  essential  to  its  didactic  drift.  They  happily  describe  a 
physical  and  mental  habit  in  accordance  with  the  situation, 
that  of  one  who  has  to  pass  through  a  protracted  period  of 
comparative  idleness.  The  farmer  sleeps  and  rises,  sleeps 
and  rises,  night  and  day,  and  day  after  day,  for  many  days  in 
succession.  There  is  plenty  of  time  for  the  monotonous 
repetition  of  these  actions.  And  there  is,  comparatively 
speaking,  little  else  to  do  but  sleep  and  rise ;  time  hangs 
heavy  on  the  husbandman's  hands.  He  rises  in  the  morning 
because  he  has  had  as  much  sleep  as  he  can  take  ;  otherwise 
he  might  as  well  lie  in  bed  all  the  day  long  for  all  that  he  has 
to  do.  Having  passed  through  the  waking  hours  in  a  listless 
mood,  he  retires  to  rest  in  the  evening  again,  glad  to  take 
refuge  for  a  while  from  the  ennui  of  an  idle  life  in  the  un- 
consciousness of  sleep.  Then  the  mood  of  the  man  corre- 
sponds to  his  circumstances.  He  knows  that  his  part  is  done, 
and  that  the  rest  must  be  left  to  the  soil ;  therefore  he  resigns 
himself  contentedly  to  an  easy-minded  passivity,  leaving  the 
earth  to  bring  forth  fruit  of  itself.  He  knows  also  that  growth 
is  a  process  that  cannot  be  hastened  ;  therefore  he  is  patient, 
or,  as  St  James  expresses  it,  "hath  long  patience  for  it."1 
Finally,  he  believes  that  the  harvest  season  will  come 
eventually,  having  faith  in  the  soil  and  the  seasons ;  therefore 
he  is  free  from  feverish  anxiety,  and  is  in  a  state  of  happy, 

the  grain,  knoweth  not  how,  to  avoid  the  ascription  of  ignorance  U 
Christ  1  *  James  v.  7. 


ch.  v.]    The  Blade,  the  Ear,  and  the  Full  Corn.    123 

healthy  security  as  to  the  result  of  his  sowing,  which  allows 
him  to  sleep  soundly  by  night.  And  it  is  this  mood  of  mind, 
to/responding  to  the  physical  habit  so  felicitously  described, 
which  the  parable  is  intended  to  inculcate.  Christ  would  have 
His  disciples  understand  that  they  must  study  to  resemble 
the  farmer  in  these  respects,  and  that  they  will  have  need  and 
opportunity  to  do  so  in  connection  with  the  progress  of  the 
kingdom  in  themselves  and  in  the  world  ;  need  and  oppor- 
tunity for  passivity,  patience,  and  faith.  While  the  kingdom 
progresses  they  will  find  it  takes  its  own  time,  and  proceeds 
according  to  its  own  laws  ;  and  finding  this  it  will  be  their 
wisdom,  instead  of  fretting  or  trying  to  force  on  growth,  to 
have  an  easy  mind,  and,  like  the  husbandman,  sleep  and  rise 
night  and  day.  The  mood  recommended  is  not  utter  indiffer- 
ence or  carelessness,  but  that  which  is  natural  to  one  who  is 
interested  in  a  process  whose  completion  requires  time.  And 
in  this  mood  Christ  could  be  and  was  an  example  to  His 
disciples ;  so  that  this  part  of  the  parable  at  least  imposes  on 
us  no  need  to  inquire  whether  the  Head  of  the  Church,  or  one 
of  His  servants,  be  the  agent  referred  to.  Christ's  behaviour 
as  the  founder  of  the  kingdom,  during  His  earthly  ministry,  < 
was  in  the  spirit  of  the  farmer.  He  sowed  the  seed  of  the 
kingdom,  and  waited  patiently  for  the  result,  not  expecting 
it  soon.  No  need,  in  order  to  make  the  parable  applicable  to 
Him,  to  interpret  this  part  of  it  as  signifying  that  between 
the  sowing  of  the  seed  during  His  sojourn  on  earth  and  the 
reaping  time  at  the  end  of  the  world,  He  should  no  longer 
be  visibly  present  in  the  field.1  During  the  earthly  ministry 
itself  we  can  see  Jesus  playing  the  part  of  the  man  who  sowed 
the  seed,  then  slept  and  rose,  night  and  day.  We  can  see 
Him  playing  that  part  in  all  departments  of  His  ministry, 
and  very  especially  in  that  most  important  department  which 
consisted  in  the  training  of  the  twelve.  How  patient  He  was 
with  those  men !  His  manner  towards  them  was  that  of  one 
who  did  not  expect  the  ripe  fruit  of  enlightened  and  sanctified 
Christian  character  to  appear  in  them  forthwith,  but  was  fully 
aware  that  between  the  ripe  fruit  and  the  beautiful  blossom 
of  enthusiastic  devotion,  under  whose  inspiration  they  left  all 

'  So  Grotius :  Sensus  mihi  videtur  perspicuus,  Christum  a  facta  semente 
ad  messis  tempus  agro  adspectabiliter  non  adfuturum. 


124         The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  i. 

and  followed  Him,  must  intervene  a  more  or  less  protracted 
period  during  which  they  should  be  as  green  ears,  or  crude 
fruit,  of  no  value  except  as  a  promise  of  something  better 
to  come. 

The  next  important  feature  in  the  parable  is  the  represent- 
ation of  the  growth  of  grain  as  a  thing  of  which  the  farmer 
has  no  cognizance.  And  the  seed  should  spring,  and  grow  up, 
he  knoweth  not  how.  The  point  intended  to  be  emphasised 
here  is  not  the  mere  fact  of  the  farmer's  ignorance,  but  his 
contentment  therewith.  This  clause  simply  adds  another 
trait  in  the  description  of  the  manner  or  mood  of  the  man. 
Apart  from  any  consideration  of  the  terms  employed  this  is 
antecedently  probable.  In  a  description  of  a  farmer's  way 
of  life  one  hardly  expects  to  find  a  grave  statement  to  the 
effect  that  he  is  ignorant  of  the  laws  by  which  seed  sown  in 
the  earth  springs  and  grows.  Of  course  he  is,  but  why  make 
so  superfluous  an  observation  ?  Scientific  knowledge  of  the 
laws  of  growth  is  not  in  his  line.  Life  and  growth  are  to  a 
large  extent  mysteries  to  all,  learned  or  unlearned,  but 
especially  to  the  practical-minded  agriculturist,  to  whom  it 
probably  never  occurs  once  in  his  whole  life-time  to  ask 
himself,  How  does  the  seed  I  have  sowed  germinate  and 
braird  ? — what  is  the  physical  cause  of  growth  ?  And  when 
we  come  to  consider  closely  the  words  of  the  parable,  we 
find  reason  to  conclude  that  it  is  no  such  grave  statement 
concerning  the  scientific  ignorance  of  the  farmer  that  they 
are  intended  to  convey.  The  words  may  be  rendered  either 
"  when  he  knoweth  not,"  or  "  how,  knoweth  not  he." l  In  the 
former  case  they  simply  mean  that  the  husbandman  does 
not  observe  the  growth.  The  seed  springs  and  grows  up, 
he  taking  little  or  no  notice  ;  which  is  just  what  we  should 
expect  of  a  man  in  the  easy  mood  ascribed  to  the  farmer  in 
the  previous  clause.  The  words  so  taken  simply  repeat  in 
a  different  form  of  language  the  statement  that  between  the 
sowing  and  the  reaping  the  farmer  is  in  a  listless  frame  of 
mind.  Taken  the  other  way,  the  words  do  seem  at  first  to 
contain  a  grave  statement  to  the  effect  that  the  farmer  is 

1  The  <!>c  may  be  taken  in  the  sense  either  of  quura  or  of  quomodo. 
The  former  rendering  is  favoured  by  Kuinoel.  wc,  he  says  =  cum,  ut  in 
Luc.  iv.  25  ;  and  the  phrase, per  participium  reddendum  est,  ipso  nescientt^ 
non  animadvertentt. 


ch.  v.]  The  Blade,  the  Ear,  and  the  Full  Corn.   125 

ignorant  as  to  the  cause  of  growth  ;  but  on  closer  consider- 
ation one  discovers  that  they  more  probably  contain  a  refer- 
ence to  an  ostentatious  indifference  on  his  part  to  all  such 
questions.  How  knoweth  not  he,  so  run  the  words ;  the 
pronoun  standing  at  the  end  and  being  emphatic  there,  "  as 
much  as  to  say,  Whoever  else  may  know  it,  it  is  all  unknown 
to  him  by  whom,  and  for  whose  benefit,  the  seed  was  sown." ' 
The  sower  of  the  seed  is  stolidly,  we  may  say  ostentatiously, 
indifferent  to  the  cause  of  growth ;  only  that  the  ostentation 
is  not  conscious,  but  is  betrayed  unconsciously  in  his  manner. 
And  what  is  the  cause  of  this  indifference  ?  It  is  the  con- 
sciousness that  the  growth  of  the  seed  is  not  under  his 
control.  The  farmer  is  a  practical  man,  and  the  only  con- 
sideration that  would  lead  him  to  take  an  interest  in  the 
question  as  to  the  cause  of  growth  would  be  the  possibility  of 
his  influencing  the  process.  If  it  could  be  shown  that  it  was 
in  his  power  to  accelerate  growth,  the  air  of  stolid  indifference 
would  speedily  vanish ;  but  as  that  is  not  possible,  he  takes  no 
thought  of  the  matter ;  and  his  carelessness  is  the  sign  that  he 
is  aware  of  the  impossibility.  And  it  is  in  this  point  of  view 
that  that  carelessness  is  referred  to  in  the  parable.  The  state- 
ment, "  the  seed  springeth  and  groweth  up,  how  knoweth  not 
he,"  really  means,  "  the  seed  springeth  and  groweth  up  inde- 
pendently of  him,  and  he  being  conscious  of  the  fact  taketh  no 
heed."  *  The  farmer's  indifference  is  signalised  as  the  visible 
index  of  habitual  and  unqualified  recognition  of  the  truth  that 
growth  is  subject  to  a  natural  law  entirely  beyond  his  control 
The  motive  of  the  parabolic  representation  at  this  point 
is  to  inculcate  the  duty  of  practically  recognising  a  similar 
truth  in  the  spiritual  sphere.  Christ's  purpose  was  not 
merely  to  proclaim  the  general  truth  that  the  beginnings  and 
progress  of  life  in  the  kingdom  of  God  are  mysterious.  This, 
of  course,  is  true,  and  in  a  purely  homiletic  treatment  of  this 
parable  it  would  be  quite  legitimate  to  make  that  truth  a 
topic  of  discourse.  We  do  well  at  times  to  meditate  on  the 
mysterious  miraculous  character  of  all  life,  and  especially  of 

1  'The  Gospel  according  to  Mark  Explained,'  by  Joseph  Addison 
Alexander,  D.D. 

8  Principal  Campbell,  'The  Four  Gospels,'  translates,  without  hk 
minding  it. 


126  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  i 

the  Divine  life  in  the  soul  of  man,  and  more  particularly  of 
the  beginning  of  that  life  in  the  new  birth.  Christ  Himself 
invites  us  to  such  meditation  in  another  of  his  sayings,  that 
spoken  to  the  Jewish  ruler:  "The  wind  bloweth  where  it 
listeth,  and  thou  hearest  the  sound  thereof,  but  canst  not  tell 
whence  it  cometh  and  whither  it  goeth ;  so  is  every  one  that 
is  born  of  the  Spirit."  And  we  should  contemplate  the 
mystery  of  a  new  Divine  life  in  the  soul  of  man  with  the  feel- 
ings with  which  it  becomes  us  to  contemplate  all  miracles ; 
with  awe,  yet  not  with  incredulity,  but  rather  with  believing 
wonder.  When  a  human  being  begins  to  seek  after  God,  to 
concern  himself  about  salvation,  to  hunger  after  righteousness 
and  wisdom,  let  us  behold  with  reverent,  awe-struck  eye  a 
spiritual  mrracle  being  wrought  before  our  face.  We  may 
not  look  on  the  spectacle  listlessly  as  if  it  were  a  thing  of 
course,  or  of  little  significance.  On  the  other  hand,  we  are 
to  beware  of  so  magnifying  the  mystery  as  to  become  unbe- 
lievers in  it ;  to  take  heed  lest  by  allowing  our  minds  to  dwell 
unduly  on  the  greatness  of  the  change  which  takes  place  in 
regeneration  we  become  at  length  unwilling  to  admit  that 
in  any  particular  case  a  regenerating  work  has  been  wrought, 
because  what  we  observe  seems  small,  insignificant,  and  far 
from  overwhelmingly  wonderful.  In  all  probability  what  we 
observe  is  very  small  indeed,  resembling  the  tiny  blade  which 
springs  up  through  the  earth  from  the  seed  buried  beneath  ; 
but  we  must  not  forget  that  even  the  blade  is  in  its  way  as 
wonderful  as  is  the  appearance  at  a  later  stage  on  the  top  of 
the  stalk  of  a  hundred  grains  in  place  of  the  one  which  has 
been  thrown  into  the  ground. 

Such  thoughts  are  very  edifying,  and  practically  very 
useful ;  but  it  was  not,  we  imagine,  such  thoughts  that  Christ 
wished  to  suggest  when  He  uttered  this  parable,  and  in  par- 
ticular that  part  of  it  now  under  consideration.  His  aim 
rather  was  to  impress  on  his  hearers  that  as  in  the  kingdom 
of  nature,  so  in  the  kingdom  of  God,  there  is  a  law  of  growth 
and  a  fixed  order  of  development  which  must  be  recognised 
j  and  respected  by  them,  as  it  is  by  the  farmer  when  he  takes 
little  notice  of  the  growth  of  his  grain,  because  he  knows 
that  it  is  entirely  beyond  his  control.  He  himself  habitually 
recognised  and  respected  that  law  and  order;    so  that  tha 


ch.  v.j    The  Bladet  the  Ear,  and  the  Full  Corn.    127 

words  "  how  knoweth  not  he,"  in  the  sense  explained,  may 
with  perfect  propriety  and  truth  be  applied  to  Him.  He  ever 
acted  as  one  who  knew  that  there  was  a  fixed  order,  a  course 
of  nature,  so  to  speak,  in  the  Divine  kingdom  which  could  not 
be  materially  modified  or  set  aside  even  by  His  will.  He 
showed  his  respect  for  law  and  order  on  various  occasions  and 
in  various  ways.  When  the  two  sons  of  Zebedee  desired  the 
places  of  distinction  in  His  kingdom  He  replied  :  "  To  sit  on 
my  right  hand  and  on  my  left  is  not  mine  to  give,  except  to 
those  for  whom  it  is  prepared  of  my  Father."  *  In  this  case 
He  showed  respect  for  the  moral  order  of  the  kingdom. 
When  asked  to  do  works  of  mercy  beyond  the  bounds  of  the 
chosen  people,  He  declined,  saying,  "  I  am  not  sent  but  unto 
the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel."  2  Here  was  respect  for 
the  political  order  of  the  kingdom.  He  was  fully  aware  that 
His  religion  was  destined  to  be  the  religion  of  humanity,  but 
He  knew  also  that  in  order  to  an  eventual  spiritual  conquest 
of  the  world  a  firm  footing  must  first  be  gained  in  Palestine  ; 
and  He  acted  accordingly.  Once  more,  Christ's  whole 
conduct  and  His  whole  teaching  were  influenced  by  the 
belief  that  the  kingdom  which  He  was  engaged  in  founding 
was  to  have  a  lengthened  history,  and  to  pass  through  a 
gradual,  secular  process  of  development  onwards,  towards 
its  final  consummation  ;  and  here  we  see  His  respect  for  what 
we  may  call  the  physical  order  of  the  kingdom.  He  was  not 
surprised,  disappointed,  or  chagrined  because  the  success 
attending  His  personal  ministry  was  small  ;  consisting  in 
little  more  than  the  collection  of  "a  little  flock"  of  twelve 
men,  in  spiritual  understanding  and  character  "  babes."  He 
looked  to  the  future  for  His  reward,  and  saw  there  fields 
white  to  the  harvest,  the  outgrowth  of  the  seed  which  He  had 
sown.  It  is  unnecessary  to  prove  that  His  teaching  is  per- 
vaded by  the  idea  that  the  kingdom  of  God  should  '  come ' 
only  slowly,  gradually,  as  the  result  of  a  development  pro- 
ceeding according  to  law.  We  find  the  thought  in  this 
parable,  and  in  the  two  parables  which  inculcate  perseverance 
in  prayer,  and  in  all  the  texts,  and  they  are  not  kw,  which 
contain  exhortations  to  watch. 

But  what  the  Master  ever  bore  in  mind,  the  disciples  were 

1  Matt.  xx.  23.  •  Matt.  xv.  24. 


128         The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  i. 

slow  to  understand  and  lay  to  heart,  and  hence  the  parable 
before  us.  They  were  ready  to  ask  at  all  times  the  question 
Why  cannot  the  kingdom  come  at  once,  in  ourselves,  or  in 
the  world  ?  They  did  ask  at  the  close  of  their  intercourse 
with  their  Lord :  "  Wilt  Thou  at  this  time  restore  again  the 
kingdom  of  Israel  ?  "  1 — as  if  feeling  that  after  years  of  weary 
waiting,  now  at  length  the  time  for  the  fulfilment  of  their 
hope  had  arrived.  The  thought  contained  in  our  parable 
does  not  appear  ever  to  have  got  a  firm  lodgment  in  their 
minds  even  in  the  period  of  their  apostolic  activity ;  and  the 
same  statement  may  be  made  with  regard  to  the  whole  Chris- 
tian Church  during  the  first  apostolic  generation.2  The  lapse 
of  ages  has  opened  our  minds  to  the  truth  which  was  hidden 
from  the  apostles,  so  far  as  the  duration  of  the  Christian 
dispensation  at  large  is  concerned.  But  there  is  reason  to 
believe,  that  the  bearing  of  the  doctrine  of  the  parable  on  the 
sanctification  of  the  individual ',  is  yet  far  from  being  generally 
understood.  Recognition  of,  and  respect  for,  the  law  of 
growth  in  this  sphere,  are  still  desiderata  of  the  average 
Christian  intelligence.  The  thoughts  of  many  in  regard  to 
this  subject  are  like  those  of  children  who  cannot  grasp  the 
idea  of  growth  subject  to  law,  and  see  no  reason  why  out  of 
an  acorn  should  not  at  once,  as  if  by  magic,  come  a  full-sized 
oak.  They  have  yet  to  learn  that  sanctification  is  a  -work 
carried  on  after  the  analogy  of  the  works  of  nature,  in  which 
the  law  of  slow  insensible  growth,  development,  or  evolution 
universally  obtains. 

The  next  important  part  of  our  parable  is  that  which 
enunciates  the  great  law  of  growth  with  reference  to  the  pro- 
duction of  grain.  "  Spontaneously  the  earth  produceth  fruit, 
first  blade,  then  ear,  then  is  full  corn  in  the  ear."  This  is  but 
the  explicit  statement  of  a  truth  which  on  a  right  view  of  the 
parable  has  already  been  implicitly  taught  in  the  previous 
clause.  The  sentence  just  quoted  simply  gives  the  formal 
explanation  of  that  feature  in  the  farmer's  behaviour  vividly 
and  quaintly  expressed  by  the  words  "  how  knoweth  not  he." 

»  Acts  i.  6. 

•  Greswell  thinks  the  point  of  the  parable  is,  that  the  Christian  Church 
should  continue  to  exist  and  thrive  through  its  own  vitality  and  tho 
providence  of  God ;  but  the  aim  of  the  parable  is  rather  to  remove  a 
feeling  of  surprise  that  in  its  earthly  state  it  should  last  so  long. 


ch.  v.J    The  Blade,  tlte  Ear,  and  the  Full  Corn.    129 

It  answers  the  natural  question,  why  is  he  so  indifferent  to 
the  growth  of  his  grain  ?  He  who  spake  the  parable  might 
have  left  his  readers  to  divine  the  answer  for  themselves,  as 
we  have  already  done.  But  He  knew  how  slow  His  hearers 
were  to  understand  the  analogous  truth  in  the  spiritual 
sphere;  therefore  He  takes  the  trouble  to  state  with  the 
utmost  deliberation  the  familiar  fact  with  regard  to  the. 
natural  sphere,  saying  in  effect :  "  The  farmer  is  so  indifferent 
to  the  growth  of  his  grain  because  he  knows,  as  you  all  know, 
that  he  has  no  control  over,  that  he  cannot  accelerate,  the 
growth,  seeing  that  the  earth  of  its  own  accord  bringeth  forth 
fruit,  first  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  and  then  the  full  corn  in 
the  ear.  Understand  ye  that  the  same  law  holds  in  the 
kingdom  of  God,  and  cultivate  the  temper  of  the  farmer,  that 
naturally  produced  by  a  due  recognition  of  and  respect  for 
the  law  of  growth."  When  this,  the  true  connection  of  thought, 
is  pointed  out,  it  becomes  apparent  how  far  this  part  of  the 
parable  is  from  being  a  mere  parenthesis ;  how,  on  the 
contrary,  it  is  the  very  kernel  of  the  parable  in  reference  to 
its  didactic  import.  But  in  order  to  recognise  the  true  con- 
nection of  thought,  men  must  be  willing  to  receive  the  truth, 
which  unfortunately  many  are  not,  with  the  inevitable  result 
that  the  teaching  of  the  parable  is  evaded  rather  than  unfolded. 
A  distinguished  American  theologian,  who  has  done  more 
than  perhaps  any  other  writer  to  throw  light  on  "  the  true 
problem  of  Christian  experience,"  remarks  with  reference  to 
the  text  from  which  he  discourses  on  that  important  theme : 
"  There  are  some  texts  of  Scripture  that  suffer  a  much  harder 
lot  than  any  of  the  martyrs,  because  their  martyrdom  is 
perpetual ;  and  this,  I  think,  is  one  of  the  number.  Two 
classes  appear  to  concur  in  destroying  its  dignity — viz.  the 
class  who  deem  it  a  matter  of  cant  to  make  anything  of 
conversion,  and  the  class  who  make  religion  itself  a  matter  of 
cant,  by  seeing  nothing  in  it  but  conversion." x  To  the  class 
of  martyred  texts  belongs  this  verse  of  our  parable,  not  to 
say  the  parable  altogether.  Men  will  persist  in  treating  the 
verse  as  a  parenthesis,  or  as  an  irrelevance,  telling  us  that  "  in 
this  respect  there  is  not  uniformity  :  the  spiritual  growth  from 
spring  to  maturity  sometimes  requires  more  than  one  natural 

1  Bushnell,  '  The  New  Life,'  p.  161,  cheap  edition. 

K 


130         The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,     [book,  v 

season,  and  sometimes  is  accomplished  in  less," x  all  because 
they  have  not  the  courage  to  grasp  and  boldly  proclaim  the 
truth,  that  in  the  kingdom  of  God,  as  it  reveals  itself  in  the 
individual  soul,  growth  is  slow  not  less  than  in  the  sphere  of 
nature  ;  nay,  not  only  not  less,  but,  as  another  distinguished 
American  theologian  has  pointed  out,  more ;  it  being  a  law 
that  the  higher  the  thing  which  grows  in  the  scale  of  being, 
the  slower  its  growth.2     We  must  insist,  therefore,  that  in 
respect  of  the  slowness  of  growth  there  is  an  analogy  between 
the  kingdom  of  nature  and  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  that  it 
was  our  Lord's  direct  purpose  to  teach  that  there  is.     Not 
only  so  ;  we  must  further  insist  that  there  is  an  analogy  not 
only  in  regard  to  the  rate  of  growth,  but  also  in  regard  to  the 
stages  through  which  the  grain  passes  from  its  initial  condition 
to  maturity.     This  is  implied  by  the  very  circumstance  of  the 
stages  being  so  carefully  enumerated,  and  also  by  the  manner 
in  which  the  last  stage  is  referred  to.     Christ  says,  the  earth 
produces,  first  blade,  then  ear  ;  then,  changing  the  construc- 
tion, he  adds,  then  is  full  corn  in  the  ear :  meaning  evidently 
to  say,  then,  and  not  till  then,  not  till  the  blade  and  the  green 
ear  have  been  passed  through,  does  the  stage  of  the  full  ripe 
ear  come.     The  full  ripe  ear  is  what  the  husbandman  desires, 
it  is  the  end  of  all  his  labours,  of  all  that  precedes — blade, 
and  green  ear,  being  merely  means  towards  that  end  ;  and  its 
importance  as  the  end  of  all  is  fully  recognised  by  the  manner 
in  which  it  is  spoken  of.     But  because  it  is  the  end,  we  are 
not  to  be  impatient  of  the  preliminary  stages  which  lead  up 
to  it,  but  must  be  content  to  reach  the  end  step  by  step, 
passing  on  from  blade  to  green  ear,  and  from  green  ear  to 
ripe  ear.     That    is  what  the  Lord  would   teach   us  in  this 
verse  with  reference  to  the  things  of  the  kingdom  in  general, 
and   specially   with   reference  to    the   sanctification   of    the 
individual. 

Our  view,  then,  is  that  the  analogy  between  growth  in  the 
natural  world  and  growth  in  the  spiritual  world  must  be 
maintained  in  its  integrity,  with  regard  at  once  to  spontaneity, 
slowness,  and  gradation.  Growth  in  the  spiritual  world  as  in 
the  natural  is  spontaneous,  in  the  sense  that  it  is  subject  to 

»  Arnot,  *The  Parables,'  p.  321. 

■  H.  W.  Beecher,  in  a  Sermon  on  Waiting  on  God. 


ch.  v.J   The  Blade^  the  Ear,  and  the  Full  Corn.   131 

definite  laws  of  the  spirit  over  which  man's  will  has  small 
control.  The  fact  is  one  to  be  recognized  with  humility  and 
thankfulness.  With  humility,  for  it  teaches  dependence  on 
God ;  a  habit  of  mind  which  brings  along  with  it  prayerful- 
ness,  and  which,  as  honouring  to  God,  is  more  likely  to 
nsure  ultimate  success  than  a  self-reliant  zeal.  With  thank- 
fulness, for  it  relieves  the  heart  of  the  too  heavy  burden 
of  an  undefined,  unlimited  responsibility,  and  makes  it 
possible  for  the  minister  of  the  Word  to  do  his  work  cheer- 
fully, in  the  morning  sowing  his  seed,  in  the  evening  with- 
holding not  his  hand ;  then  retiring  to  rest  to  enjoy  the 
sound  sleep  of  the  labouring  man,  while  the  seed  sown 
springs  and  grows  apace,  he  knoweth  not  how.  Growth  in 
the  spiritual  world,  as  in  the  natural,  is,  further,  a  process 
which  demands  time  and  gives  ample  occasion  for  the  exer- 
cise of  patience.  Time  must  elapse  even  between  the  sowing 
and  the  brairding ;  a  fact  to  be  laid  to  heart  by  parents  and 
teachers,  lest  they  commit  the  folly  of  insisting  on  seeing  the 
blade  at  once,  to  the  probable  spiritual  hurt  of  the  young 
intrusted  to  their  care.  Much  longer  time  must  elapse 
between  the  brairding  and  the  ripening.  That  a  speedy 
sanctification  is  impossible  we  do  not  affirm ;  but  it  is,  we 
believe,  so  exceptional  that  it  may  be  left  altogether  out  of 
account  in  discussing  the  theory  of  Christian  experience. 
Once  more,  growth  in  the  spiritual  world,  as  in  the  natural, 
is  graduated ;  in  that  region  as  in  this  there  is  a  blade,  a 
green  ear,  and  a  ripe  ear.  Those  who  demur  to  this  view 
may  ask  us  to  specify  the  distinctive  marks  of  the  several 
stages,  so  that  our  hypothesis  may  be  verified.  We  accept 
the  challenge,  and  shall  endeavour  to  discriminate  the  suc- 
cessive phases  of  experience  which  manifest  themselves  in 
the  life  of  a  Christian  in  the  course  of  his  growth  in  grace ; 
though  conscious  that  in  the  performance  of  the  task  we 
shall  receive  small  help  from  the  commentators.  But  before 
we  proceed  to  this  topic  we  must  make  a  few  observations 
on  the  last  sentence  of  the  parable. 

But  when  the  fruit  permits  (being  ripe),  immediately  he 
putteth  forth  the  sickle  because  the  harvest  is  at  hand.  The 
point  of  importance  here  is  not  the  question  what  or  when 
is  the  harvest,  but  rather  the  marked  change  in  the  manner 

K2 


132  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,     [eook  l 

of  the  farmer  from  Hstlessness  to  energetic  activity.1  The 
man  who  erewhile  slept  and  rose  and  walked  about  during 
waking  hours,  so  to  speak,  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  is 
now  all  alive,  moving  about  with  nimble  feet,  giving  his 
orders  to  his  servants,  saying,  Go  forth,  with  sickle  in  hand, 
for,  lo,  the  harvest  is  upon  us ;  see  there  the  whitened  fields 
ready  to  be  reaped.  In  connection  with  this  change  of  mood 
and  manner  the  word  irapabol  taken  in  the  sense  of  permits, 
is  very  significant.  It  implies  that  the  advent  of  harvest 
removes  a  restraint  from  pent-up  energy,  and  lets  it  at  length 
escape  in  action  ;  and  thus  it  throws  an  interesting  light  on 
the  nature  of  the  antecedent  indifference.  It  was,  after  all, 
not  a  real  radical  indifference  or  apathy.  It  was  latent  energy 
biding  its  time ;  it  was  fervent  desire  well  controlled  by  the 
patience  of  hope.  That  seeming  Hstlessness  was  but  the 
sluggishness  of  dammed-up  waters,  which  rush  forth  in  an 
impetuous  current  when  the  temporary  embankment  is 
removed  ;  or  the  languor  of  the  race-horse,  who  flies  like  an 
arrow  in  the  race  when  the  signal  to  start  is  given. 

And  such  is  the  patience  of  Christians  during  that  time  in 
their  spiritual  history  when  they  wait  on  God  for  the  fulfil- 
ment of  their  desire  in  an  enlightened  and  sanctified  character. 
Their  mood  may  seem  to  others,  and  even  to  themselves, 
apathy,  indifference,  death ;  but  at  worst  it  is  but  the  mood 
of  the  man  in  whom  hope  deferred  maketh  the  heart  sick. 
They  wait  not  in  real  indifference,  but  as  they  who  in  dark- 
ness wait  for  the  dawn ;  as  Paul  and  his  shipwrecked  com- 
panions waited  in  the  Adriatic  Sea  that  night  when  they 
cast  out  four  anchors  and  wished  for  the  day.2  How  much 
spiritual  life  and  energy  were  latent  in  them  all  along  becomes 
apparent  when  the  spiritual  harvest  season  arrives,  the  time  of 
illumination  and  enlargement  Then  the  apparently  apathetic 
one  becomes  active  in  all  good.  Then  the  man  who  seemed 
to  care  for  nothing  but  himself  gives  himself  up  in  self- 
abandonment  to  a  life  of  love.    Then  the  Church,  for  the  law 

1  The  verse,  however,  taken  along  with  the  preceding  part  of  the  parable, 
does  point  at  a  great  truth  concerning  the  moral  order  of  the  world. 
Growth  slow,  harvest  sudden  (ti-fliwi),  holds  good  of  all  Divine  action  in 
Providence.  Historical  movements  are  slow  in  progress  but  sudden  in 
their  crisis.     On  this  truth  we  shall  have  occasion  to  speak  in  next  chapter. 

■  Acts  xxvii.  29. 


ch.  v.]    The  Blade,  the  Ear,  and  the  Full  Corn.    133 

applies  on  the  great  scale  as  well  as  on  the  small,  awakes 
from  seeming  sleep,  shakes  herself  from  the  dust  which  has 
gathered  about  her,  looses  herself  from  the  bonds  of  human 
ordinances  and  traditions,  puts  on  the  beautiful  garments  of 
holiness,  and  clothes  herself  with  the  strength  of  a  new 
creative  time  in  which  she  reaps  the  results  of  forces  which 
have  been  slowly  and  secretly  working,  and  also  sow  the  seeds 
of  a  future  harvest.  For  it  is  in  such  great  epochs  that  the 
harvest  spoken  of  in  our  parable  is  to  be  sought,  not  merely 
at  the  end  of  the  world.  The  harvest  is  the  result  of  any 
historical  development  whether  in  the  individual  or  in  society  ; 
and  there  may  be  as  many  harvests  in  the  history  of  the 
Church  as  there  are  definite  spiritual  movements  in  her  career. 
And  now  we  return  to  the  topic  of  the  Stages,  that  we  may 
characterise  them  more  definitely  than  we  have  yet  done, 
though  we  have  thrown  out  stray  hints  here  and  there.  And 
here  we  shall  confine  ourselves  to  the  experience  of  the 
individual,  though  sensible  that  the  history  of  the  kingdom 
of  God  at  large  is  a  far  greater  theme  than  that  of  any  indi- 
vidual Christian,  and  ready  to  admit  that  it  was  probably 
the  former  which  our  Lord  had  chiefly  in  His  thoughts  when 
He  uttered  the  parable.  Our  apology  for  restricting  our 
inquiry  to  the  minor  subject  is,  first,  that  we  understand  it 
better ;  second,  that  while  the  larger  subject  is  the  more 
inviting  theme  to  the  speculative  mind,  the  lesser  may  prove 
the  more  useful  to  ordinary  Christians ;  and  third,  that  while 
the  parable  in  its  first  intention  may  have  the  wider  scope 
in  view,  it  does  not  exclude  the  narrower.  That  Christ  in 
uttering  this  parable  had  the  spiritual  growth  of  the  individual 
in  view,  as  well  as  the  larger  growth  of  the  kingdom  as  a 
whole,  will  seem  improbable  to  no  one  who  considers  these 
three  things :  first,  the  very  general  terms  employed  in  the 
introduction  of  the  parable,  "  So  is  the  kingdom  of  God," 
without  qualification  or  limitation ;  the  implied  doctrine 
being,  that  wherever  the  kingdom  of  God  appears  there 
growth  is  in  accordance  with  the  representation  in  this 
parable ;  second,  the  fact  that  in  the  first  parable,  that  of  the 
tower,  the  growth  contemplated  is  exclusively  that  which 
takes  place  in  the  individual  hearer  of  the  word  ;  third,  that 
in  the   lesson   on  perseverance  in  prayer,  recorded   in   the 


^34  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  I. 

eleventh  chapter  of  Luke's  Gospel,  reference  is  made  to  the 
Holy  Spirit"1  as  an  object  of  desire  to  individual  disciples; 
showing  that  the  sanctification  of  His  disciples  individually 
was  a  topic  which  occupied  Christ's  thoughts. 

First  the  blade — or,  the  blossom  :  for  it  is  convenient  in  con- 
sidering the  stages  of  spiritual  growth  to  employ  both 
emblems,  the  second  having  its  root  in  Scripture  not  less  than 
the  first,  as  e.g.  in  that  suggestive  expression  in  the  first 
Psalm,  fruit  in  his  season.  Blade,  green  ear,  ripe  ear ;  blossom, 
green  fruit,  ripe  fruit :  such  are  the  alternative  series  of  stages. 
What  we  have  now  to  do  is  to  determine  the  characteristics 
of  the  incipient  stage,  that  of  the  blade  or  the  blossom. 

The  blade  or  the  blossom  signifies  the  conscious  apparent 
beginning  of  the  Divine  life  in  the  soul.  We  use  the  epithets 
conscious  and  apparent  to  qualify  beginning,  because  we  do  not 
hold  that  Divine  life  necessarily  dates  from  the  moment  when 
it  becomes  a  matter  of  consciousness  and  observation.  There 
may  be  grace  in  the  heart  before  it  is  understood  by  the 
subject  of  its  influence,  or  recognised  by  others  as  such.  This 
is  the  case  in  most  instances  of  sanctification  from  childhood, 
and  the  fact  should  be  borne  in  mind  by  parents  and  teachers 
more  than  it  is.  For  there  is  a  very  common  and  increasingly 
prevalent  tendency  to  disbelieve  in  gracious  influence  unless 
when  it  is  seen  under  its  ordinary  form  as  exhibited  in  adults  ; 
and  those  who  have  the  charge  of  children,  taking  for  granted 
the  absence  of  grace  from  the  absence  of  marked  manifest- 
ation, set  themselves  with  a  kind  of  desperate  earnestness  to 
develop  prematurely,  by  a  system  of  forcing  appliances,  the 
usual  symptoms  of  conversion  as  they  exhibit  themselves  in 
persons  of  mature  years.  The  result  of  this  system  in  the 
after  history  of  children  so  manipulated  we  believe  to  be 
calamitous,  consisting  in  effect  in  the  premature  consumption 
of  all  the  spiritual  fuel  in  the  soul  of  a  child,  leaving  for 
manhood  nothing  but  ashes. 

When  the  life  that  is  in  the  soul  begins  to  appear  it  does 
not  manifest  itself  always  in  the  same  manner.  It  appears 
sometimes  as  a  corn-blade,  and  sometimes  as  a  fruit-blossom. 
In  the  former  case  it  attracts  less  notice  than  in  the  latter.  It 
may  be  observable  to  those  who  look  attentively,  but  it  does 

1  Vide  on  this  next  chapter* 


ch.  v.]    The  Blade,  the  Ear,  and  the  Full  Corn.     135 

not  arrest  attention  ;  it  does  not  catch  the  eye  of  even  the 
inobservant,  as  the  blossom  of  an  apple  tree  attracts  the  notice 
of  even  the  most  careless  wayfarer.  "  The  signs  of  new  life 
are  not  obtrusive,  consisting  merely  in  a  certain  quiet  thought- 
fulness,  a  deepening  seriousness,  a  tendency  to  shun  society 
and  court  solitude  congenial  to  meditation  and  prayer.  There 
is  a  feeling  of  emptiness,  a  longing  after  the  object  of  infinite 
love,  a  melancholy  craving  for  love,  a  deep  drawing  of  the 
spirit  towards  the  unknown  Divine  which  can  satisfy  the 
craving,  an  indifference  towards  the  world,  a  delight  in  earnest 
reading,  instruction,  and  meditation,  a  liking  for  the  company 
of  pious  men." x  When  the  kingdom  of  God  comes  like  the 
blossom  on  the  fruit  tree  the  signs  of  its  coming  are  much 
more  marked.  There  is  in  such  cases  greater  emotional 
excitement ;  great  sorrow  it  may  be  first,  then  great  joy,  the 
joy  of  the  soul's  espousal  to  the  mystic  Bridegroom,  accom- 
panied with  a  love  full  of  rapture.  "  The  love  is  consciously 
first  love,  a  new  revelation  of  God  in  the  soul,  a  restored  con- 
sciousness of  God,  a  birth  of  joy  and  glorified  song  in  the 
horizon  of  the  soul's  life,  like  that  which  burst  into  our  sky 
when  Jesus  was  born  into  the  world."  *  And  as  the  blossom 
is  beautiful,  so  this  beginning  of  the  new  life  is  altogether 
lovely,  and  may  easily  create  the  impression  of  an  already 
completed  sanctification.  Hence  the  notion  that  spiritual 
maturity  may  be  attained  per  saltum,  without  any  process  of 
growth ;  hence  the  conceit  of  perfection  in  some  who  are 
merely  beginning  the  Divine  life.  When  one  considers  that 
the  watchword  of  the  mature  and  experienced  Christian  is 
aspiration,  and  his  motto  "  I  press  on,"  it  may  seem  strang*e 
and  presumptuous  in  the  beginner  to  be  otherwise  minded, 
and  to  think  he  has  already  attained.  But,  in  truth,  it  is  quite 
natural,  that  "  in  this  flowering  state  of  beauty "  the  soul 
should  discover  and  even  have  "  in  its  feeling  the  sense  of 
perfection,"  3  because  the  flower  is  perfect  in  its  way,  and  the 
beginner  has  no  means  of  knowing  that  this  is  not  the  kind 
of  perfection  which  he  is  called  to  reach  as  his  goal.  Inex- 
perienced, initial  Christianity  is  but  a  blossom,  and  what  it  is 

1  Arndt,  *  Die  Gleichnissreden.'  In  his  treatment  of  this  parable,  this 
thoughtful  and  eloquent  German  author  shows  more  insight  than  we  hava 
met  with  in  any  other  writer  on  the  parables. 

•  BushnelL  '  The  New  Life,'  p.  163.  ■  Ibid.,  p.  i6> 


136         The  Parabolic    Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  l 

to  come  to  is  ripe  fruit,  and  it  is  to  come  to  that  through 
sourness  and  unripeness.  But  the  blossom  knows  nothing  ol 
fruit  either  ripe  or  unripe  ;  it  is  conscious  only  of  itself.  And 
it  is  conscious  of  itself  as  something  beautiful,  really  perfect 
in  its  kind,  even  fairer  to  look  on  than  the  ripe  fruits  which 
hang  on  the  tree  of  life  in  the  old  age  of  Christian  experience. 
How  beautiful  the  first  love  of  the  heart  for  Christ,  the  new- 
born passion  for  Christian  virtue,  the  devotional  spirit  which 
constantly  dwells  in  the  breast,  sending  the  youthful  disciple 
to  solitary  spots  to  pray,  and  setting  him  on  efforts  to  think 
holy,  heavenly  thoughts  all  the  day  long  1  Who  that  has  felt 
this,  possibly  at  a  very  early  period  of  life,  does  not  look  back 
on  it  as  something  hallowed,  though,  alas,  he  knows  too  well 
that  it  cannot  be  relied  on  as  a  guarantee  against  the  com- 
mission of  many  faults,  and  the  entrance  into  the  mind  of 
many  unbelieving,  bitter,  bad  thoughts.  Across  the  interval 
of  years,  in  spite  of  much  that  is  humbling  and  disappointing, 
in  spite  of  lapses,  backslidings,  heresies,  scepticisms,  blas- 
phemies, he  looks  back  on  that  time  as  an  Eden  in  his 
spiritual  history,  as  a  soft  balmy  spring-tide  when  the  soul 
blossomed  into  Christian  faith  and  feeling,  and  the  tongue 
was  attuned  to  new  songs.  If  then,  even  after  the  sobering 
influence  of  experience,  a  mature  Christian  thinks  thus  ten- 
derly of  his  earlier  state,  what  wonder  if  the  inexperienced 
should  mistake  the  beginning  for  the  end,  the  blossom  for  the 
fruit,  spring  for  harvest,  holy  feeling  for  holy  living,  ideals  for 
performances,  gushing  first  love  for  stern  fidelity  temptation- 
proof?  It  is  a  mistake,  and  a  very  great  one,  but  do  not 
laugh  at  it ;  do  not  be  angry  at  it ;  do  not  waste  time  preach- 
ing against  it.  It  is  a  mistake  that  will  be  soon  enough 
corrected  by  experience. 

For  the  second  stage,  that  of  the  green  ear,  or  green  fruit, 
will  certainly  come ;  whereof  we  must  now  speak,  with  no 
assistance  from  the  commentators,  for  scarcely  one  of  them 
gives  a  single  hint  as  to  what  is  meant  by  the  green  ear. 
All  one  can  glean  from  their  pages  is  a  stray  remark  by  one 
that  the  intermediate  time  between  the  brairding  and  the 
reaping  is  often  a  time  of  trial  ; 1  and  by  another,  that  the 
time  when  there  is  no  apparent  growth  is  a  time  of  inward 

1  Olshausen, '  Commentar.' 


ch.  v.]     The  Blade>  the  Ear,  and  the  Full  Corn.     137 

growth.1  Now  as  to  the  characteristics  of  this  second  stage, 
it  follows  of  course  from  the  simple  fact  of  its  being  the  time 
of  waiting,  of  unfulfilled  desire,  of  unrealised  ideals,  of  green 
ears  and  crude,  sour,  unpalatable  fruit,  that  it  is  a  time  which 
brings  experiences  more  profitable  than  pleasant.  The  fruit 
of  the  Spirit  tastes  very  acid  at  this  stage.  Its  experiences 
are  such  as  Bunyan's  pilgrim  had  in  his  passage  through  the 
Valley  of  Humiliation  and  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death  ; 
such  as  Bunyan  himself  had  in  the  years  of  gloom  before 
he  attained  to  cleai  light  and  settled  peace,  and  abundant 
joyful  Christian  fruitfulness.  It  is  a  time  of  temptation  and 
struggle,  of  doubts  and  fears,  of  sadness,  depression,  and 
gloom,  of  stagnation  and  torpor.  It  is  that  phase  in  the 
believer's  history  whereof  Newton  sings,  when  prayers  for 
growth  in  faith,  and  love,  and  every  grace  are  answered  in 
such  a  way  as  almost  to  drive  one  to  despair.8  The  author 
of  the  hymn  represents  the  bitter  experiences  described  in 
it  as  an  answer  to  his  prayer  for  growth.  And  so  it  really  is. 
The  green  ear,  the  crude  fruit,  is  really  a  stage  in  advance 
of  the  blossom,  which  looks  so  much  better,  as  is  confessed 
by  all,  in  regard  to  natural  growth.  No  one  looking  on  an 
apple  tree  after  the  blossom  is  deadened  and  the  fruit  set, 
thinks  of  remarking,  What  a  degeneracy  1  But  men  are 
very  ready  to  commit  such  a  mistake  in  regard  to  spiritual 
growth.  The  tendency  is  to  regard  transition  from  the 
blossom  to  the  green  fruit  as  a  simple  declension,  or  falling 
away  from  grace,  and  to  characterise  the  antecedent  experi- 
ence as  a  merely  temporary  excitement ;  which  in  many  cases 
is  about  as  wise  as  if  one  were  to  say  with  regard  to  an  apple 
tree  when  the  flowering  stage  is  past,  it  was  only  a  little 
temporary  blossom.  From  ignorance  of  the  law  of  growth 
young  Christians  at  this  stage  are  apt  to  form  very  unfavour- 
able judgments  of  themselves.  As  it  is  characteristic  of  the 
incipient  and  final  stages  to  entertain  hopeful  views  of  one's 
condition,  so  it  is  equally  characteristic  of  this  stage  to  take 
desponding  gloomy  views.  The  fruit  of  the  Spirit's  work 
is  so  bitter  and  unpalatable  that  it  is  readily  mistaken  for 
poisonous  fruit  of  the  devil's  growing.     The  mind  clouded 

1  Arndt, '  Die  Gleichnissreden.' 

■  In  the  well -known  hymn,  "  I  asked  the  Lord  that  I  might  grow.0 


I 


138         The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  l 

with  sceptical  and  evil  thoughts,  the  conscience  afflicted 
with  all  manner  of  morbid  scruples,  the  heart  cold  and  self- 
centred,  too  engrossed  with  its  own  miseries  to  interest  itself 
in  anything  beyond,  how  unlike  these  spiritual  phenomena  to 
the  love,  joy,  and  peace  of  which  the  apostle  speaks ! — how 
natural  that  one  in  whose  soul  they  manifest  themselves 
should  think  himself  an  unbeliever,  an  apostate,  even  a 
blasphemer  guilty  of  sin  utterly  unpardonable !  The  subject 
of  these  experiences  being  so  liable  to  mistake  their  true 
character,  it  is  all  the  more  to  be  desired  that  others  should 
be  able  to  judge  them  more  correctly.  Yet  how  often  is 
it  otherwise  1  Bunyan's  history  supplies  an  instructive  illus- 
tration. When  he  was  in  that  stage  of  his  religious  experi- 
ence which  answers  to  the  green  ear,  he  believed  he  had 
committed  the  unpardonable  sin,  and  in  his  distress  consulted 
a  Christian  friend  who  was  thought  to  be  endowed  with 
superior  spiritual  insight,  with  what  result  may  best  be  told 
in  his  own  words.  "  About  this  time  I  took  an  opportunity 
to  break  my  mind  to  an  ancient  Christian,  and  told  him 
all  my  case.  I  told  him  also  that  I  was  afraid  I  had  sinned 
a  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  he  told  me  he  thought 
so  too.  Here,  therefore,  I  had  but  cold  comfort ;  but  talking 
a  little  more  with  him,  I  found  him,  though  a  good  man, 
a  stranger  to  much  combat  with  the  devil." x  What  an 
egregious  blunder  to  mistake  the  painful  discipline  by  which 
Bunyan  was  being  prepared  to  write  the  '  Pilgrim's  Progress,' 
for  blasphemy  against  the  Holy  Ghost !  How  many  mistakes 
of  a  similar  kind  may  be  committed  in  every  generation  by 
men  of  reputed  wisdom  and  sanctity,  but  "  strangers  to  much 
combat  with  the  devil."  In  the  light  of  Bunyan's  story  we 
can  see  the  utility  of  more  acquaintance  with  such  warfare, 
were  it  only  to  fit  Christians  for  speaking  a  word  in  season 
to  him  that  is  weary. 

Yet  there  is  some  excuse  for  perplexity  in  judging  of  such 
experiences  as  are  incident  to  the  stage  of  the  green  ear. 
For  while  these  experiences  are  not  to  be  resolved  into 
simple  declension  or  apostasy,  they  are  very  apt  to  be  accom- 
panied by,  and  even  to  produce,  moral  retrogression.  In 
a  joyless  state  it  is  not  easy  to  hold  one's  ground.     When 

1  Vide  '  Grace  Abounding  to  the  Chief  of  Sinners.' 


ch  v.]     The  Blade,  the  Ear,  and  the  Full  Corn.     139 

doubts  assail  one  either  as  to  the  fundamental  truths  of 
religion,  or  as  to  personal  relations  with  God,  it  is  not 
easy  to  hold  fast  a  good  conscience,  and  to  keep  oneself 
unspotted  from  the  world.  Hence,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  few 
do  get  into  a  dull,  cheerless,  doubting  state  of  mind,  without 
losing  ground  spiritually.  And  when  the  conscience  is 
troubled  the  Christian  can  see  nothing  in  his  own  case  but 
sin.  His  doubts  are  sin  ;  his  dryness  and  deadness  in  religious 
duties,  his  joylessness,  depression,  and  inactivity  are  all  sin. 
And,  on  the  whole,  this  is  a  safe  view  for  one  to  take  of 
himself,  provided  he  do  not  so  utterly  misunderstand  the 
course  of  religious  experience  as  to  be  without  hope  concern- 
ing himself,  like  Bunyan.  But,  while  a  practically  safe  view, 
it  is  far  from  being  a  complete  account  of  the  matter.  The 
word  backsliding  does  not  by  any  means  sum  up  the  experi- 
ence of  one  who  is  passing  through  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow 
of  Death ;  and  to  speak  as  if  it  did,  as  is  too  often  done, 
is  simply  to  break  the  bruised  reed,  and  quench  the  smoking 
taper.  It  is  quite  possible  that  there  may  be  very  little  sin 
in  the  whole  experience,  but  only  the  morbidity  inseparable 
from  the  stage  of  development  in  which  it  appears  ;  as  in  the 
case  of  Bunyan,  who  was  never  more  in  earnest  in  the  fear  of 
God,  and  the  love  of  Christ,  than  when  he  thought  himself 
guilty  of  blasphemy.  He  thought  there  was  no  fruit  of  the 
Spirit  in  him  then,  because  there  was  none  yet  ripe.  But  there 
was  that  in  him,  only  in  crude  form,  whose  natural  outcome  in 
due  course  was  to  be  a  rich  harvest  of  wisdom  and  love — the 
fruit  of  which  still  remains  treasured  up  in  his  immortal  volume. 
Only  one  remark  more  need  be  added  on  this  topic.  It 
may  be  supposed  that  the  experiences  described  as  incidental 
to  the  second  stage  are  exceptional.  We  believe  the  contrary 
to  be  the  fact.  The  experiences  peculiar  to  this  phase  are 
indeed  by  no  means  stereotyped  in  their  form,  but  manifest 
themselves  under  very  diverse  aspects  in  different  men.  But 
something  of  the  kind  happens  to  all  men  of  definite  decided 
religious  character.  And  let  it  not  be  supposed  that  the 
more  piety  the  less  of  these  experiences.  This  were  in  effect 
to  say,  that  the  cause  of  the  green  ear  is  the  presence  of 
thorns  in  the  soil,  so  that  if  the  soil  were  perfectly  clean, 
the  heart  altogether  good  and  noble,  the  seed  would  reach 


140  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  i. 

maturity  without  passing  through  the  green  stage.  But  the 
true  distinction  between  the  thorny  soil  and  the  good  soil  is 
not  that  in  the  one  the  green  ear  appears,  while  in  the  other 
it  is  never  seen,  but  rather  that  in  the  one  the  grain  never 
gets  beyond  the  green  ear,  while  in  the  other  it  passes  on 
from  greenness  to  maturity.  It  is  no  sin  to  be  in  the  green 
ear  :  the  sin  is  never  to  pass  beyond  it ;  and  as  it  is  no  sin  to 
be  in  the  green  ear,  so  neither  is  it  any  privilege  to  be  con- 
ferred on  faithful  souls,  to  escape  passing  through  it.  No  ;  it 
is  not  the  privilege  of  faithful  noble  souls  to  overleap  the 
green  ear.  Rather  it  is  their  lot  to  know  more  of  its  peculiar 
experiences  than  others,  as  all  religious  biography  attests. 
They  who  reap  in  greatest  joy  sow  most  in  tears.  They  who 
know  best  what  it  is  to  mount  up  on  wings  like  eagles,  to  run 
and  not  weary,  to  walk  and  not  faint,  know  also  better  than 
others  what  it  is  to  have  to  wait  on  the  Lord. 

For  those  who  faithfully  and  patiently  wait  the  full  corn  in 
the  ear  comes  without  fail.  But  how  shall  we  describe  this 
last  h'ghest  stage,  so  as  at  once  to  convey  an  adequate  and 
yet  a  sober  view  of  its  peculiar  characteristics?  It  is  not 
easy  ;  but  in  a  few  broken  sentences  let  us  try  at  least  to 
suggest  a  rudimentary  idea  of  what  has  been  variously  named 
Christian  perfection,  Christian  maturity,  the  Higher  Christian 
Life.  Bunyan  gives  us  his  idea  of  the  state  in  that  part  of 
his  allegory  where  he  represents  the  Pilgrim  as  arriving  at 
the  Land  of  Beulah,  where  the  sun  shines  night  and  day,  the 
land  lying  beyond  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death,  and 
out  of  the  reach  of  Giant  Despair,  and  from  which  one  cannot 
so  much  as  see  Doubting  Castle ;  where  Christians  are  within 
sight  of  the  city  they  are  going  to — that  is,  have  a  lively  hope 
of  eternal  life — where  they  renew  their  marriage  contract  with 
their  God,  where  they  have  no  want  of  corn  and  wine  ;  but 
meet  with  abundance  of  what  they  have  sought  for  in  all 
their  pilgrimage.  In  the  day  when  a  Christian  arrives  at  this 
stage  the  promise  of  Jesus  to  His  disciples  is  fulfilled:  "Ye 
now,  therefore,  have  sorrow,  but  I  will  see  you  again,  and 
your  heart  shall  rejoice,  and  your  joy  no  man  taketh  from 
you."  l  The  early  joy  of  a  believer  is  passionate  and  transient, 
this   final  joy  is  tranquil,  and    abides.     It  is  the  joy  of  a 

1  John  xvi.  22. 


ch.  v.]    The  Blade,  the  Ear,  and  the  Full  Corn.     141 

conscience  enlightened,  and  freed  from  bondage  to  scruples 
without  loss  of  tenderness,  of  a  mind  established  in  religious 
conviction,  and  in  which  faith  and  knowledge  are  reconciled, 
and  of  a  heart  delivered  from  concern  about  self  and  its 
interests,  whether  temporal  or  eternal,  to  serve  God  and  man 
with  generous  devotion,  and  taught  by  sorrow  to  sympathise. 
Now  at  length  there  does  appear  the  ripe  fruit  of  the  Spirit : 
love,  joy,  peace,  long-suffering,  gentleness,  goodness,  faith, 
meekness,  temperance.  A  well-known  writer  on  the  religious 
affections  says  :  "  The  Scripture  knows  no  true  Christians  of 
a  sordid,  selfish,  cross,  and  contentious  spirit  ;  nothing  can  be 
a  greater  absurdity  than  a  morose,  hard,  close,  high-spirited, 
spiteful  true  Christian."  x  The  statement  indicates  a  lack  of 
due  discrimination  between  sincerity  and  maturity.  There 
are  sincere  Christians  of  the  character  described,  but  there 
are  certainly  no  mature  Christians  of  such  a  character.  For 
the  mature  are  loving,  wise,  benignant,  humble,  patient,  rich 
in  well-doing,  willing  to  communicate,  heartily  and  supremely 
interested  in  the  progress  of  the  Divine  kingdom,  and  loyal 
subjects  of  its  King.  Yet,  withal,  the  mature  Christian  is 
characteristically  free  from  self-complacency.  It  is  not 
possible  for  him,  as  it  is  possible  for  the  immature  disciple,  to 
think  that  he  hath  attained  the  goal  of  perfection.  His  ideal 
of  the  Christian  life  is  pitched  too  high  to  allow  such  a  fancy 
to  enter  his  mind.  "  I  know  not  how  to  describe  the  grandeur 
and  simplicity  of  the  state  that  is  no  longer  self-bounded, 
self-referring ;  how  great  a  thing  to  such  a  freed  rejoicing 
spirit  the  life  in  Christ  Jesus  seems  ! — a  temple  truly  '  not  of 
this  building,'  too  great  to  be  mapped  out  and  measured  ;  too 
great  to  be  perfect  here."  2 

From  these  brief  hints  it  will  be  seen  that  the  last  stage  of 
Christian  growth  cannot  be  regarded  as  a  mere  repetition  of 
or  return  to  the  first,  as  if  the  Divine  life  consisted  in  a  per- 
petual see-saw  between  falls  and  conversions.  There  is  an 
affinity  but  not  an  identity ;  for  that  which  springs  out  of 
experience  can  never  be  identical  with  a  state  which  precedes 

1  Jonathan  Edwards,  '  Treatise  on  the  Religious  Affections,'  Part  iii. 
sect.  8. 

•  '  The  Patience  of  Hope,'  p.  102.  This  little  work  by  the  late  Miss 
Greenwdl  is  full  of  true  insight  into  the  law  of  growth  in  the  spiritual  worl<i 


142,  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  I. 

experience.  A  writer  already  referred  to  puts  the  relation 
between  the  two  thus: — "The  real  object  of  the  subsequent 
life  as  a  struggle  of  experience  is  to  produce  in  wisdom  what 
is  then  begotten  as  a  feeling,  or  a  new  love ;  and  thus  to 
make  a  fixed  state  of  that  which  was  initiated  only  as  a  love. 
It  is  to  convert  a  heavenly  impulse  into  a  heavenly  habit.  It 
is  to  raise  the  Christian  childhood  into  a  Christian  manhood 
—to  make  the  first  love  a  second  or  completed  love ;  or,  what 
is  the  same,  to  fulfil  the  first  love  and  give  it  a  pervading 
fulness  in  the  soul ;  such  that  the  whole  man,  as  a  thinking, 
self-knowing,  acting,  choosing,  tempted,  and  temptable 
creature,  shall  coalesce  with  it,  and  be  for  ever  rested,  immov- 
ably grounded  in  it."1  But,  perhaps,  the  relations  between 
the  initial  and  final  stages  by  way  both  of  resemblance  and  of 
contrast  can  be  better  understood  by  examples  than  by  any 
abstract  statement.  We  shall  therefore  conclude  with  a  few 
extracts  from  the  autobiography  of  one  in  whose  religious 
history  all  the  three  phases  of  spiritual  growth  were  well 
marked,  and  than  whom  no  one  was  ever  more  competent  to 
speak  on  the  subject  of  Christian  sanctification,  or  has  ever 
spoken  more  wisely.  In  a  section  of  that  work,  the  author, 
Richard  Baxter,  draws  a  contrast  between  his  earlier  and  his 
later  views,  which  is  altogether  very  instructive,  and  in  which 
the  following  passages,  taken  at  random,  occur : — "  In  my 
younger  years  my  trouble  for  sin  was  most  about  my  actual 
failings  in  thought  and  deed,  but  now  I  am  much  more 
troubled  for  inward  defects."  "  Heretofore  I  placed  much  of 
my  religion  in  tenderness  of  heart,  and  grieving  for  sin,  and 
penitential  tears,  and  less  of  it  in  the  love  of  God,  and  study- 
ing His  love  and  goodness,  and  in  His  joyful  praises,  than 
now  I  do."  "  I  was  once  wont  to  meditate  most  on  my  own 
heart,  and  to  dwell  all  at  home  and  look  little  higher.  I  was 
still  poring  either  on  my  sins  or  my  wants,  or  examining  my 
sincerity ;  but  now,  though  I  am  greatly  convinced  of  the 
need  of  heart  acquaintance,  yet  I  see  more  of  a  higher  work ; 
that  I  should  look  oftener  upon  Christ,  and  God,  and  heaven, 
than  upon  my  own  heart.  I  would  have  one  thought  at 
home  upon  myself  and  sins,  and  many  thoughts  above  upon 
the  high,  and  amiable,  and  beatifying  objects."  "  Heretofore 
1  Bashnell,  •  The  New  Life,'  p.  166, 


ch.  v.]     The  Blade ,  the  Ear,  and  the  Full  Corn,    143 

I  knew  much  less  than  now,  and  yet  was  not  half  so  much 
acquainted  with  my  own  ignorance.  I  had  a  great  delight  in 
the  daily  new  discoveries  which  I  made,  and  of  the  light 
which  shined  in  upon  me  (like  a  man  that  cometh  into  a 
country  where  he  never  was  before).  But  I  little  knew  either 
how  imperfectly  I  understood  these  very  points  whose  dis- 
covery so  much  delighted  me,  nor  how  much  might  be  said 
against  them,  nor  how  many  things  I  was  yet  a  stranger  to." 
"  At  first  I  was  greatly  inclined  to  go  with  the  highest  in 
controversies  on  one  side  or  the  other.  But  now  I  can  so 
easily  see  what  to  say  against  both  extremes,  that  I  am  much 
more  inclinable  to  reconciling  principles."  "I  am  not  so 
narrow  in  my  special  love  as  heretofore.  Being  less  censorious 
I  love  more  as  saints  than  I  did  heretofore."  "  My  soul  is  much 
more  afflicted  with  the  thoughts  of  the  miserable  world,  and 
more  drawn  out  in  desire  for  their  conversion,  than  heretofore. 
Yet  am  I  not  so  much  inclined  to  pass  a  peremptory  sentence 
of  damnation  upon  all  that  never  heard  of  Christ."  "  I  am 
deeper  afflicted  for  the  disagreements  of  Christians  than  I 
once  was.  Except  the  case  of  the  infidel  world  nothing  is  so 
sad  to  my  thoughts  as  the  case  of  the  divided  churches." 
"  I  do  not  lay  so  great  stress  upon  the  external  modes  and 
forms  of  worship  as  many  young  professors  do.  I  cannot  be 
of  their  opinion  that  think  God  will  not  accept  him  that 
prayeth  by  the  Common  Prayer  Book,  and  that  such  forms 
are  a  self-invented  worship  which  God  rejecteth.  Nor  yet 
can  I  be  of  their  mind  who  say  the  like  of  extempore  prayer." 
"  I  am  much  more  sensible  than  heretofore  of  the  breadth, 
length,  and  depth  of  the  radical,  universal,  odious  sin  of 
selfishness,  and  of  the  excellency  and  necessity  of  self-denial 
and  of  a  public  mind,  and  of  loving  our  neighbour  as  our- 
selves." "I  am  more  solicitous  about  my  duty  to  God,  and 
less  solicitous  about  His  dealings  with  me." !  In  these 
precious  fragments  we  recognise  the  marks  of  spiritual 
maturity  :  a  conscience  tender,  yet  free  from  superstition  and 
legalism;  a  heart,  which  to  brotherly  kindness  adds  charity; 
an  understanding  enlightened  with  sober,  well-balanced  views 
of  truth,  refusing  to  call  any  human  teacher  master,  yet  in 
harmony  in  all  essentials  with  the  wise  and  good  of  all  ages, 

1  'Reliquiae  Baxterianae,'  Part  I. 


CHAPTER  VL 

THE  SELFISH  NEIGHBOUR  AND  THE  UNJUST  JUDGE; 

OR,  THE  CERTAINTY  OF  AN  ULTIMATE  ANSWER  TO  PERSISTENT  PRAYER 
FOR  THE  COMINO  OF  THE  KINGDOM. 

AT  what  precise  periods  in  the  ministry  of  our  Lord  these 
parables  were  delivered  we  have  no  means  of  determining. 
There  is  no  ground  for  assuming  that  they  were  uttered  at 
the  same  time,  or  that  either  of  them  was  spoken  in  close 
proximity  to  the  parable  last  considered.  But  the  kindred 
character  of  the  two  parables  obviously  justifies  us  in  studying 
them  together,  and  their  didactic  import  equally  justifies  us 
in  taking  them  up  at  this  point  They  form  a  most  appro- 
priate sequel  to  the  parable  of  the  blade,  the  ear,  and  the  full 
corn,  which  teaches  that  growth  in  the  kingdom  of  God, 
whether  in  the  individual  or  in  the  community,  is  gradual  and 
slow.  For  the  progress  of  the  kingdom  in  both  spheres  may 
be  said  to  be  the  great  subject  of  all  Christian  prayer,  and 
thus  retarded  progress  will  mean  delay  in  the  answering  of 
prayer.  And  it  is  the  experience  of  such  delay  in  the  case 
of  those  who  earnestly  desire  the  progress  of  the  kingdom, 
and  the  temptation  thence  arising  to  cease  from  praying,  with 
which  these  two  parables  have  to  do.  That  experience  is  the 
occasion  of  their  being  uttered,  and  to  meet  the  temptation 
springing  therefrom  is  their  common  aim.  Understanding 
this  we  have  the  key  to  the  true  interpretation  of  these 
parables ;  failing  to  understand  it  we  shall  miss  the  mark. 
The  expositor  must  start  with  the  assumption  that  an  experi- 
ence of  delay  in  the  answering  of  prayer  is  presupposed  in 
both  parables ;  that  the  men  to  whom  they  are  spoken  are 
men  who  have  discovered  that  God  has  to  be  waited  on  for 


ch.  vi.]  Selfish  Neighbour  and  Unjust  Judge.       145 

the  fulfilment  of  spiritual  desire.  We  state  this  categorically 
at  the  outset,  because  the  fact  may  escape  the  notice  of  one 
who  looks  merely  on  the  surface  of  the  parables,  and  has 
regard  only  to  their  express  statements.  No  mention  is  made 
of  delay  in  the  earlier  parable  ;  and  while  in  the  later  words 
occur  which  imply  the  idea  of  delay  when  rightly  interpreted,1 
they  are  words  capable  of  a  different  interpretation,  and  likely 
to  receive  it  from  one  who  does  not  come  to  the  parable  with 
the  conviction  in  his  mind  that  what  makes  exhortations  to 
perseverance  in  prayer  needful  is,  and  can  be,  nothing  else 
than  experience  of  Divine  delay  in  granting  the  things  sought 
after.  Such  a  conviction,  therefore,  it  must  be  the  first 
business  of  the  interpreter  to  furnish  himself  with.  And 
surely  this  ought  not  to  be  very  difficult  t  It  requires  little 
reflection  to  see  that  no  devout  man  can  be  seriously  tempted 
to  cease  from  prayer  merely  because  he  does  not  obtain  what 
he  asks  in  a  few  minutes  or  hours  or  even  days.  The  tempt- 
ation can  arise  only  after  a  sufficient  time  has  elapsed  to 
leave  room  for  doubts  as  to  the  intention  of  the  Being  to 
whom  prayer  is  addressed  to  grant  the  desires  of  supplicants. 
In  the  case  of  the  man  who  knocked  at  the  door  of  his 
neighbour  seeking  bread,  a  few  minutes  sufficed  to  produce 
such  doubts.  But  in  the  spiritual  sphere  a  much  longer  time 
must  elapse ;  even  years  may  be  required  to  put  a  Christian 
in  a  state  of  mind  analogous  to  that  of  the  man  who  stood 
at  his  neighbour's  door — in  the  state  of  mind  which  makes 
such  counsel  as  our  Lord  gives  in  these  parables  eminently 
seasonable.  How  long  it  will  require  Jesus  does  not  state ; 
we  are  supposed  to  learn  that  from  experience  ;  and  in  point 
of  fact  those  who  need  the  comfort  of  these  parables  do  so 
learn,  and  have  no  need  that  any  one  should  tell  them. 

While  both  directed  against  temptations  to  cease  from 
prayer  arising  out  of  the  tardiness  with  which  growth  in  the 
Divine  kingdom  proceeds,  these  two  parables  have  nevertheless 
in  view  two  distinct  classes  of  experiences.  The  one  contem- 
plates experiences  of  delay  in  connection  with  individual 
sanctification,  the  other  addresses  itself  to  similar  experiences 
in  connection  with  the  public  fortunes  of  the  kingdom.     That 

1  Luke  xviii.  5  ;  last  clause,  Kal  fiaKpoByfiel  (or  «*>)  l-r  avrolc — though  he 
delay  in  their  cause :  vide  the  expositioa  of  the  parable. 

ft 


146  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  ». 

the  parable  of  the  Selfish  Neighbour  has  in  view  mainly  and 
primarily  the  spiritual  interest  of  the  individual  may  be 
inferred  from  the  closing  words  of  the  great  lesson  on  prayer 
of  which  it  forms  a  part :  "  How  much  more  shall  your 
heavenly  Father  give  the  Holy  Spirit  to  them  that  ask  Him."1 
The  supposed  object  of  desire  is  the  Holy  Spirit  as  the 
enlightener  and  sanctifier  of  individual  disciples.  Some 
critics  indeed,  having  regard  to  the  fact  that  in  the  parallel 
passage  in  Matthew  the  general  expression  "good  things"8 
takes  the  place  of  the  more  definite  phrase  in  the  third 
Gospel,  question  the  authenticity  of  the  latter,  and  see  in 
it  only  an  instance  of  the  colouring  which  Luke's  report  of 
our  Lord's  teaching  received  from  his  familiarity  with  and 
predilection  for  the  Pauline  system  of  doctrine.8  And  we 
admit  that  this  reference  to  the  Holy  Spirit  as  the  immanent 
ground  of  Christian  sanctity,  an  almost  solitary  instance  in 
the  Synoptic  Gospels,  is  fitted  to  arrest  attention.  This 
ethical  conception  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  as  distinct  from  the 
Old  Testament  view  of  Him  as  the  transcendent  source  of 
cJtarismata,  is,  as  Pfleiderer  has  pointed  out,  a  characteristic 
feature  in  the  Pauline  system  of  thought.  And  probably  it 
was  due  to  Pauline  influence  that  Luke  recognised  its  import- 
ance by  introducing  it  into  his  view  of  Christ's  teaching.  But 
we  need  not  therefore  doubt  the  originality  of  the  saying  as 
given  in  the  text  quoted.  The  representation  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  as  the  supreme  object  of  desire  is  in  keeping  with  the 
whole  circumstances  in  which  the  lesson  on  prayer  was  given. 
The  evangelist  tells  us  that  it  was  after  hearing  their  Master 
pray  that  the  disciples  requested  Him  to  instruct  them  in  the 
holy  art.  The  request  implied  a  consciousness  of  spiritual 
defect ;  and  Jesus,  knowing  the  religious  condition  of  His 
followers  better  than  they  did  themselves,  proceeded  to  make 
provision  for  their  wants  by  suggesting  subjects  of  prayer  to 
meet  the  lack*  of  thoughts,  by  putting  into  their  mouths  forms 
of  words  to  meet  the  need  of  dumb  souls,  and  finally  by 
furnishing  inducements  to  perseverance  in  prayer  to  meet  the 
need  of  men  tempted  to  cease  praying  by  the  discouraging 

1  Luke  xi.  13.  »  iyaQi:  Matt  vii.  II. 

*  So  Hilgenfeld,  who  characterises  the  phrase  wvtvpa  £ytor  as  Gut 
Paulinisch.    '  Einleitung,'  p.  503. 


ch.  vi.]   Selfish  Neighbour  and  Unjust  Judge.       147 

consciousness  that  the  kingdom  of  God  was  coming  in  theif 
hearts  at  a  very  slow  pace.  We  cannot  doubt,  therefore,  that 
the  earlier  of  the  two  parables  on  perseverance  in  prayer  has 
in  view  chiefly,  we  say  not  exclusively,  the  disappointing 
spiritual  experiences  of  individual  disciples.  That  the  later 
parable,  on  the  other  hand,  has  a  wider  scope,  and  contem- 
plates the  general  interests  of  the  kingdom,  is  evident  from 
the  application:  "And  shall  not  God  avenge  His  own  elect, 
which  cry  day  and  night  unto  Him,  though  He  bear  long 
with  them?"1  The  situation  supposed  is  evidently  that  of 
the  elect  Church  of  God  as  a  collective  body,  in  a  condition 
of  widowhood,  harassed  and  evil  entreated  by  an  unbelieving 
world,  and  receiving  no  succour  from  Providence ;  to  all 
appearance  abandoned  to  her  fate  by  a  God  who,  far  from 
behaving  towards  her  as  a  husband,  does  not  even  maintain 
the  character  of  a  just  judge  in  her  behalf. 

Wherever  doubts  concerning  the  utility  of  prayer  engendered 
by  delayed  answers  are  felt,  there  painful  misgivings  regarding 
the  reality  of  Divine  love  must  force  themselves  on  the  mind. 
Hence  these  parables  may  be  regarded  as  an  attempt  to 
reconcile  with  the  facts  of  experience  the  doctrine  of  a 
paternal  Providence.  This  doctrine,  we  know,  Jesus  taught 
with  great  emphasis  and  unwearying  iteration,  applying  it 
both  to  ordinary  life  and  to  the  higher  sphere  of  the  Divine 
life.  As  taught  by  Him  the  doctrine  of  a  heavenly  Father  is 
very  beautiful ;  but  one  conversant  with  the  facts  of  life  may 
be  tempted  to  ask,  Is  it  true  ?  Beautiful  words  are  those 
spoken  by  Jesus  about  a  Father  who  will  provide  for  those 
who  devote  themselves  to  His  kingdom,  and  will  give  them 
all  they  need  both  for  body  and  soul ;  words  full  of  pathos 
and  poetry,  the  bare  reading  of  which  exercises  a  soothing 
influence  on  our  troubled  spirits  in  this  world  of  sorrow  and 
care ;  yet  are  not  these  lyric  utterances  but  a  romantic  idyll 
standing  in  no  relation  to  real  life  ?  It  may  be  right  that  we 
be  thankful  for  them  as  springs  in  the  desert.  Nevertheless, 
the  world  is  a  desert  all  the  same.  Providence  is  anything 
but  paternal ;  if  there  be,  indeed,  a  Providence  at  all,  which 
often  seems   more   than   doubtful.      Jesus   knew   that   such 

1  Luke  xviii.  7.     The  more  exact  rendering  and  interpretation  of  the 
words  wfll  be  given  in  the  sequel. 

1  2 


148  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  i. 

doubting  thoughts  would  arise  in  good  men's  minds,  and  He 
spake  not  a  few  words  designed  to  heal  them,  and  among 
these  a  chief  place  must  be  assigned  to  our  two  parables. 
These  parables  are,  in  intent,  a  defence  of  a  doctrine  which 
Christians  often  find  hard  to  believe — the  doctrine  of  God's 
fatherly  love ;  and  as  such  they  illustrate  and  vindicate  the 
apologetic  character  which,  in  the  commencement  of  these 
studies,  we  ascribed  to  the  parables  generally. 

Much  of  the  interest  of  the  parables  before  us  lies  in  their 
pathos  as  apologies  for  the  doubted  love  of  a  heavenly 
Father,  the  deep  sympathy  with  which  the  speaker  enters 
into  the  moral  situation  supposed,  and  identifies  Himself  with 
and  so  mediates  between  both  parties,  the  doubting  and  the 
doubted.  Jesus,  through  the  insight  of  love,  knows  perfectly 
the  thoughts  of  His  tried  ones,  and  how  God  appears  to  them 
in  the  hour  of  trial ;  and  He  dares  to  describe  the  God  of 
appearance  as  He  seems  in  the  midnight  of  temptation, 
taking  the  tempted  up  at  the  point  where  He  finds  them,  and 
seeking  to  inspire  hope  even  in  desponding  minds  by  suggest- 
ing a  distinction  between  the  God  of  appearance  and  the  God 
of  reality.  And  what  Jesus  has  dared  to  do  we  must  not 
hesitate  to  say  that  He  has  done.  We  must  not  shrink  from 
saying  that  the  selfish  neighbour  in  bed  and  the  unjust  judge 
represent  God  as  He  appears  to  faith  tried  by  delay.  It  is  a 
great  fault  in  an  expositor  to  be  over-anxious  to  say  that  God 
is  not  really  selfish  or  unjust.  Of  course  He  is  not,  but  only 
seems.  But  the  point  to  be  emphasised  is  that  He  does 
seem.  The  expositor  who  fails  to  emphasise  this  point  is 
like  Job's  friends,  who  in  their  stupid,  prosing,  didactic  way 
defended  God,  saying,  "  Remember,  I  pray  thee,  who  ever 
perished,  being  innocent  ?  or  where  were  the  righteous  cut 
off?"1  And  resembling  them  in  their  stupidity,  he  is  apt 
also  to  resemble  them  in  their  injustice  to  the  tried  one. 
Too  anxious  to  vindicate  God,  he  does  wrong  to  the  tempted, 
instead  of  helping  them  with  sympathy  and  counsel,  by 
indulging  in  reflections  to  the  effect,  "Thus  God  appears  to 
unbelief lt%     No,  not  to  unbelief  only,  but   to  faith  also  in 

1  Job  iv.  7. 

*  So  the  learned  but  pedantic  Stier  ('  Die  Reden  Jesu ').  Very  differently 
Olshausen  remarks :  The  Saviour  here  places  Himself  on  the  standpoint  of 


ch.  vi.  j  The  Selfish  Neighbour.  149 

times  of  trial ;  to  elect  ones  when  deserted ;  to  an  elect  Church 
widowed,  helpless,  desolate,  her  Maker  for  the  time  not  her 
husband,  or  only  a  husband  that  is  dead  ;  to  a  Jeremiah  asking 
leave  to  reason  with  God  about  His  judgments  j1  to  a  Psalmist 
whose  feet  well  nigh  slipped  when  he  saw  the  prosperity  cf  the 
wicked  and  the  hard  lot  of  good  men.2  By  all  means  let  com- 
mentators have  sympathy  with  God,  but  let  it  not  be  a 
one-sided  sympathy ;  let  them  have  sympathy  with  God's 
people  also,  as  Jesus  had  when  He  uttered  these  parables ; 
and  let  them  not  stand  between  His  faithful  ones  and  the 
comfort  He  designed  for  them  in  their  hours  of  darkness  and 
despondency. 

With  pathos  often  goes  humour,  and  so  it  is  in  the  parables 
before  us.  The  spirit  of  Jesus  was  too  earnest  to  indulge  in 
idle  mirth,  but  just  because  He  was  so  earnest  and  so 
sympathetic  He  expressed  Himself  at  times  in  a  manner 
which  provokes  a  smile ;  laughter  and  tears,  as  it  were, 
mingling  in  His  eyes  as  He  spoke.  It  were  a  false  propriety 
which  took  for  granted  that  an  expositor  was  necessarily  off 
the  track  because  in  his  interpretation  of  these  parables 
an  element  of  holy  playfulness  appears  blended  with  the  deep 
seriousness  which  pervades  them  throughout.  With  these 
preliminary  observations  we  proceed  to  the  exposition  of  the 
parables,  spoken  to  teach  that  men  ought  always  to  pray,  and 
not  to  faint.     And  first  the  parable  of 

THE  SELFISH   NEIGHBOUR. 

Jesus  said  unto  His  disciples,  Which  of  you  shall  have  a  friend,  and  shall 
go  unto  him  at  jnidnight,  and  say  unto  him,  Friend,  lend  me  three 
loaves  :  for  a  friend  of  mine  is  come  to  me  from  a  journey,  and  /have 
nothing  which  I  can  set  before  him?  And  he  from  within  shah 
answer  and  say,  Don1 1  trouble  me  :  the  door  is  already  shut,  and  my 
children  are  with  me  in  bed ;  /  can't  rise  and  give  thee.  I  say  unto 
you,  Even  if  he  will  not  rise  and  give  him,  because  he  is  his  friend, 
yet  at  least3  because  of  his  shamelessness  he  will  rise  and  give  him  as 
many  as  he  needs. — Luke  xi.  5 — 8. 

those  who  experience  that  God  oft  delays  long  with  fulfilment  of  prayer, 
and  describes  Him  as  an  unrighteous  Being  in  accordance  with  the 
subjective  feeling  of  the  praying  one,  and  gives  his  counsel  in  conformity 
therewith.  *  Jeremiah  xii.  1.  ■  Psalm  lxxiii. 

•  On  the  force  of  the  particle  yk  see  further  on. 


150  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  i. 

It  has  been  remarked  of  this  parable,  as  of  the  Unjust  Judge 
and  many  others  peculiar  to  Luke,  that  in  it  the  parabolic 
character  is  not  strictly  maintained,  the  fable  passing  into  an 
example  of  the  doctrine  taught.1  It  has  also  been  pointed 
out  that  the  grammatical  structure  of  the  parable  undergoes 
a  change  as  it  proceeds.  Commencing  with  the  interrogative 
form,  it  passes  into  the  form  of  a  narrative.  Had  the  initial 
form  been  maintained  throughout,  the  parable  would  have 
run  thus :  Which  of  you  shall  have  a  friend,  and  shall  go  and 
say  to  him  thus  and  thus,  and  (if)  this  one  shall  reply  so  and 
so,  (will  not  persist  knocking  and  demanding  until)  he  shall 
be  glad  to  give  him  what  he  asks  to  get  rid  of  him.2  These 
defects  in  literary  form  and  grammatical  structure  do  not  in 
the  smallest  degree  detract  from  the  value  of  the  parable  for 
the  purpose  in  hand.  It  admirably  illustrates  the  power  of 
importunity,  by  showing  how  it  can  gain  its  end  even  in  the 
/  most  unpromising  situation.  The  curiosa  felicitas  of  the 
parable  will  best  be  made  apparent  by  entering  into  a  little 
detail,  first  in  reference  to  the  situation,  and  next  in  reference 
to  the  means  by  which  importunity  makes  itself  master  of  it. 

In  order  to  show  how  extremely  discouraging  the  situation 
is,  it  will  not  be  necessary  to  lay  stress  on  the  hour  of 
the  night  at  which  the  petitioner  for  bread  finds  himself 
called  on  to  provide  for  his  unseasonable  visitor.  Travelling 
in  the  night  is  common  in  the  East,3  and  it  may  be  said  to 
belong  simply  to  the  natural  realism  of  the  parable  that  the 
incident  related  is  represented  as  happening  at  midnight. 
One  cannot  but  remark,  however,  in  passing,  that  it  belongs 
to  the  felicity  of  the  parable  to  suggest  what   it  does   not 

1  Weizsacker, '  Untersuchungen,'  p.  209. 

•  So  Godet,  who  further  points  out  that  if  the  narrative  form  be  adopted 
throughout,  the  parable  will  run  thus  :  If  one  of  you  has  a  friend,  and  say 
to  him,  &c,  and  this  one  reply,  &c.  (nevertheless),  I  tell  you,  &c.  Unger 
('De  Parabolarum  Natura,'  &c.)  makes  the  Ti'e  t%  vpuv  the  refuser  and 
giver,  not  the  asker  ;  so  that  the  parable  runs :  Who  is  there  among  you, 
who  if  a  friend  come  and  make  such  and  such  a  demand,  though  at  first 
annoyed,  will  not  at  length,  on  account  of  his  importunity,  give  him  what 
he  asks  ? 

•  The  journey  homewards  of  the  wise  men  of  the  East  commenced 
during  night,  likewise  the  flight  of  Joseph  {vide  Matt.  ii.  12 — 14). 
Kuinoel,  in  his  commentary  on  this  passage,  refers  to  Hasselquist's  '  Reisa 
nach  Palastina '  in  proof  that  the  practice  still  prevails. 


CH.  vi.]  The  Selfish  Neighbour.  15] 

expressly  teach,  viz.  that  the  comfort  it  is  designed  to  convey 
to  tried  faith  is  available  to  those  who  find  themselves  M  the 
very  darkest  hour  of  their  spiritual  perplexities.1  But  passing 
from  this,  we  note  the  discouraging  circumstances  in  which 
the  man  in  need  finds  himself  on  arriving  at  his  neighbour's 
door.  The  difficulty  which  confronts  him  is  not  a  physical 
one ;  that,  viz.,  of  finding  his  neighbour  so  profoundly  asleep 
that  it  is  impossible  by  any  amount  of  knocking,  however 
loud,  to  awaken  him.  His  discouragement  is,  as  the  nature 
of  the  argument  required  it  to  be,  a  moral  one ;  that, 
viz.,  of  finding  his  neighbour,  after  he  has  succeeded  in 
arousing  him  to  consciousness,  in  a  state  of  mind  the 
reverse  of  obliging,  utterly  unwilling  to  take  the  trouble 
necessary  to  comply  with  his  request.  The  mood  of  the  man 
in  bed  is  most  graphically  depicted.  It  is  the  mood  of  a  man 
made  heartless  and  selfish  by  comfort.  Comfortable  people, 
we  know,  are  apt  to  be  hard-hearted,  and  comfortable 
circumstances  make  even  kind  people  selfish  for  the  moment. 
Jesus  holds  up  to  our  view  an  illustrative  example.  And  the 
picture  is  so  sketched  to  the  life  that  we  cannot  repress  a 
smile  at  the  humour  of  the  scene,  while  fully  alive  to  the  deep 
pity  and  pathos  out  of  which  the  whole  representation  springs. 
The  man  is  made  to  describe  himself,  and  to  show  out  of  his 
own  mouth  what  an  utterly  selfish  creature  he  is.  First  an 
ominous  omission  is  observable  in  his  reply.  There  is  no 
response  to  the  appeal  to  his  generous  feelings  contained  in 
the  appellation  '  Friend '  addressed  to  him  by  his  neighbour. 
The  man  who  needs  his  help  calls  him  <£i'Ae,  but  he  takes 
good  care  not  to  return  the  compliment.  How  true  is  this 
touch  to  human  nature  as  it  shows  itself  in  every  age  I  The 
rich,  who  need  nothing,  have  many  friends,  but  the  poor 
is  hated  even  of  his  own  neighbour.2  The  first  words  uttered 
by  the  man  in  bed  are  a  rude,  abrupt,  surly  "  Don't  bother 
me."  For  so  undoubtedly  ought  they  to  be  rendered.  We 
find  the  phrase,  or  one  very  similar,  occurring  several  times 
in  the  New  Testament :  as  in  the  parable  of  the  Unjust  Judge ; 

1  On  the  spiritualising  of  ihoovvkt'iov  Olshausen  remarks,  that  as  Christ's 
parables  imply  a  fine  intuition,  it  is  a  safe  canon  that  no  trait  should  be 
overlooked  if  it  do  not  disturb  the  image  of  the  whole.  With  this  I  concur ; 
only  we  must  always  distinguish  between  the  teaching  of  a  parable  and 
what  I  have  called  its  felicity.  •  Proverbs  xiv.  20. 


152  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  i. 

m  Christ's  speech  in  defence  of  Mary  of  Bethany  against  the 
censure  of  the  disciples,  who  blamed  the  extravagance  of  her 
noble  work,  the  anointing  of  her  Lord  ; l  and  in  the  closing 
words  of  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Galatians.2  In  the  two  last 
places  the  words  must  be  rendered  in  a  dignified  way,  in 
keeping  with  the  solemn  tone  of  the  speaker  and  writer. 
Jesus  says,  Do  not  vex  Mary  by  finding  fault  with  what 
she  has  just  done.  Paul,  utterly  weary  of  the  carnality  of 
religious  contention,  closes  his  Epistle  with  the  sentence, 
Henceforth  let  no  man  cause  me  annoyances :  for  I  bear  in 
my  body  the  marks  of  Jesus.  "  I  too  am  a  crucified  man  ;  let 
me  have  a  crucified  man's  privilege,  and  be  done  for  ever 
with  the  troublers  of  Israel,  and  enter  into  the  rest  of  the 
weary."  But  it  would  be  out  of  keeping  with  the  whole 
situation  to  put  a  dignified  speech  into  the  mouth  of  a  man 
irritated  by  unseasonable  disturbance  of  his  nightly  repose. 
We  must  make  him  speak  as  men  usually  do  when  they  are 
out  of  humour,  employing  a  vocabulary  redolent  of  slang, 
and  spiced  with  words  not  worthy  to  find  a  place  in  dic- 
tionaries. When  he  said  fir]  /not  kottovs  7rdpexe>  ne  felt  Just  as 
those  do  now  who  say  in  colloquial  English,  "  Don't  bother 
me,"  or  " Don't  fash  me;"8  and  the  same  remark  applies  to 
the  use  of  a  similar  phrase  by  the  unjust  judge. 

Next  comes  a  comically  serious  detailed  description  of  the 
difficulties  which  stand  in  the  way  of  complying  with  the 
needy  neighbour's  request :  "  The  door  is  already  barred,  and 
my  children  are  with  me  in  bed."  Poor  man,  he  is  to  be 
pitied  !  If  it  were  only  the  mere  matter  of  getting  out  of 
bed,  it  would  be  no  great  affair,  now  that  he  is  awake.*  But 
the  unbarring  of  the  door  is  a  troublesome  business,  not  so 

»  Matt.  xxvi.  10.  *  Gal.  vi.  17. 

•  So  Farrar.  His  remarks  on  the  parable  are  very  racy.  "  He  does 
not  return  the  greeting  <pi\t ;  the  expression  pri  /*ot  kovovc  nagtXt, '  Don't 
fash  me,'  is  an  impatient  one  :  the  door  KUXuarat,  '  has  been  shut  for  the 
night ; '  oi  ivva/uu,  '  I  can't,'  meaning  '  I  won't'"—'  Life  of  Christ,'  vol.  i. 
p.  453,  note. 

*  And  yet  it  is  probably  the  rising  out  of  bed  that  he  really  objects  to. 
This  crops  out  unconsciously  in  his  concluding  words  :  I  am  not  able 
rising  to  give  thee  (ofl  ivva/tM  avaor&c  Sovvai  aw).  On  lyip8t\c  in  ver.  5, 
Bengel  remarks,  Amicitia  ad  dandum  impellere  poterat:  impudentia 
pulsare  perseverans  ad  laborem  surgetidi  impelliu 


ch.  vi. J  The  Selfish  Neighbour.  153 

easily  performed  as  the  turning  of  a  key  handle,  which  is  all 
we  Europeans  and  modems  have  to  do  in  similar  circum- 
stances.1 And  then  the  dear  children  are  in  bed  asleep :  if 
one  were  to  waken  them,  what  a  trouble  to  get  them  all 
hushed  to  rest  again.2  Really  the  thing  is  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. And  so  he  ends  with  a  peevish,  drawling  "  I  can't  rise 
to  give  thee."  His  "I  can't"  means  "  I  won't."  The  circum- 
stances which  hinder,  after  the  most  has  been  made  of  them, 
are  utterly  frivolous  excuses,  and  it  is  simply  contemptible  to 
refer  to  them  seriously  as  reasons  for  not  helping  a  friend  in 
need.  But  the  very  fact  that  he  does  this  only  shows  how 
utterly  unwilling  he  is,  how  completely  comfort  and  sleep  have 
deadened  every  generous  feeling  in  his  heart.  And  that  he 
is  capable  of  adducing  such  considerations  as  grounds  of 
refusal  is  the  most  discouraging  feature  in  the  situation  of  the 
poor  suppliant.  It  is  a  poor  outlook  for  Need  when  Abund- 
ance so  easily  excuses  herself  for  refusing  succour.  Alas,  how 
sad  to  think  that  so  much  misery  exists  in  the  world  unre- 
lieved for  no  better  reason  !  It  is  not  that  physical  resources 
adequate  to  the  purpose  do  not  exist ;  it  is  that  there  is  so 
much  comfortable  selfishness,  which  regards  the  smallest 
trouble  or  sacrifice  as  an  insurmountable  obstacle. 

But  in  the  case  of  the  parable  comfortable  selfishness  for 
once  finds  itself  over-matched  by  importunate  want.  The 
situation  is  desperate  indeed  when  the  person  solicited  for  aid 
finds  it  in  his  heart  to  refuse  it  on  such  paltry  grounds.  But 
the  petitioner  has  the  matter  in  his  own  hands  ;  he  can  make 
the  unwilling  one  fain  to  give  him  whatever  he  wishes,  be  it 
three  loaves  or  thirty:8  not  for  friendship's  sake  certainly,  for 

1  On  kskXiuttm  Bengel  remarks,  Vecte  olim,  qui  majore  labore 
removetur. 

*  The  idea  of  some  commentators,  that  rh  irail'ia  refers  to  servants,  is 
not  in  keeping  with  the  simple,  homely  character  of  the  parable.  Grotius, 
while  rendering  naiSia  children,  thinks  that  the  idea  meant  by  the  refer- 
ence is  that  there  is  no  one  at  home  who  can  without  inconvenience 
give  bread  to  the  man  at  the  door.  But  the  purpose  seems  rather  to  be 
to  suggest  the  risk  of  disturbing  the  children. 

8  Bengel  on  Zow  remarks,  Quotquot,  vel  si  pluressint  panes,  quamquos 
summa  necessitas  postulat.  Non  incommodius  est  multos  jam  dare  quarn 
tres,  unumve.  There  is  a  various  reading  here,  some  MSS.  having  '600*. 
With  hffov  the  proper  rendering  is  "  as  much  as  he  wishes?  with  'oauv  "  as 
many  as  he  Heeds." 


154  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  l 

of  that  there  can  be  little  hope  after  that  contemptible  "  I 
can't  rise  and  give  thee;"  but  for  very  selfishness*  sake  to 
get  rid  of  the  annoyance  and  be  free  to  relapse  into  slumber. 
How  then  ?  What  are  the  means  by  which  need  is  able  to 
make  itself  master  of  the  situation  ?  One  word  answers  the 
question.  It  is  shamelessness,  avatbeia.  Shamelessness,  not  in 
knocking  at  the  door  of  a  neighbour  at  such  an  hour,1  for  that 
may  be  excused  by  necessity,  and  at  all  events  it  has  failed. 
The  shamelessness  meant  is  that  which  consists  in  continuing 
to  knock  on  after  receiving  a  decided  and  apparently  final 
refusal.  Think  of  it !  the  petitioner  pays  no  heed  to  the 
excuses  advanced  and  to  the  denial  given.  He  knocks  on 
without  mercy  and  without  delicacy,  continues  to  knock 
louder  and  louder,  hoping  to  compel  his  neighbour  to  rise  and 
give  him  what  he  wants  even  out  of  a  regard  to  that  very 
comfort  which  he  loves  so  dearly.  How  indecent !  But  ne- 
cessity knows  no  restraints  of  a  merely  conventional  kind,  and 
success  covers  a  multitude  of  sins.  And  of  course  the  shame- 
less one  succeeds.  For  comfort's  sake  his  neighbour  at  first 
refused  his  request,  and  for  comfort's  sake  at  last  he  will  be  fain 
to  grant  it.  For  how  can  he  sleep  with  such  a  noise  going  on 
without ;  and  what  chance  is  there  even  of  the  children,  deep 
and  sweet  though  their  slumber  be,  sleeping  on  through  it  all  ? 
The  best  thing  to  be  done  is  just  to  rise  and  do  reluctantly  and 
tardily  what  should  have  been  done  voluntarily  and  at  once.8 
How  expressive  that  one  word  shamelessness,  and  how  in- 

1  So  Bengel,  noctu  venientis. 

*  Christ's  purpose  is  not  to  assert  dogmatically  that  the  neighbour  will  not 
help  his  friend  for  any  other  reason,  but  to  assert  that  he  will  certainly  do  it 
for  the  reason  specified.  This  is  the  force  of  the  particle  yk  in  the  clause  lid 
yt  r»}v avaifciav  avrov.  Klotz  (in  Devarium)  derives  yl  from  TEQ  —  taw,  or 
from  ayt,  which  renders  the  reader  or  hearer  attentive,  and  so  gives  more 
importance  to  the  word  excepted.  He  says  that  wherever  anything  is 
affirmed  by  yk  a  certain  opposition  is  implied  ;  not  such,  however,  that  it 
opposes  things  contrary,  inter  se,  but  so  that  it  distinguishes  and  makes 
one  thing  stand  out  more  than  another.  Thus  if  we  say  of  one  of  two 
Uitvoc  yt  fj«i,  we  do  not  mean  the  other  does  not  come,  but  this  one 
certainly  comes.  The  use  of  the  future  tense  in  the  previous  clause, 
however  (t»  Ka<  oi  Swan),  implies  that  relief  on  the  score  of  friendship  is 
very  improbable.  The  particle  yt  has  the  same  force  in  the  other  parable 
(Luke  xviii.  5).  The  words  of  the  unjust  judge  are  to  be  paraphrased: 
Though  I  fear  not  God,  nor  regard  man,  and  therefore  little  is  to  be  ex« 
pected  from  me  on  that  score,  yet  at  least  on  account,  &c. 


ch.  vi.]  The  Selfish  Neighbour.  155 

structive !  It  teaches  us  the  nature  of  true  prevailing  prayer. 
The  prayer  which  gains  its  end  is  prayer  which  knocks  till  the 
door  is  opened,  regardless  of  so-called  decencies  and  proprie- 
ties, which  seeks  till  it  obtains,  at  the  risk  of  being  reckoned 
impudent,  which  simply  cannot  understand  and  will  not  take 
a  refusal,  and  asks  till  it  receives. 

In  the  parable  importunity  is  completely  successful,  and  we 
see  for  ourselves  that  it  cannot  fail  to  be.  The  seeker  has 
only  to  continue  knocking  to  gain  his  point.  That  very  love 
of  comfort  evinced  by  his  neighbour,  which  constitutes  the 
initial  difficulty,  suppli.es  him  with  the  sure  means  of  achiev- 
ing a  triumph.  But  when  we  come  to  apply  the  parable  to 
the  case  of  prayer  addressed  to  God,  it  appears  to  lack 
cogency  as  a  persuasive  to  perseverance,  for  want  of  parallel- 
ism in  the  circumstances.  The  spirit  of  doubt  will  have  no 
difficulty  in  evading  the  implied  argument.  It  may  say, 
"  This  parable  certainly  shows  that  importunity  may  prevail 
in  very  unlikely  and  discouraging  circumstances.  But  the 
circumstances  supposed  cannot  occur  in  the  case  of  prayer 
addressed  to  the  Divine  Being.  We  can  never  have  God  in 
our  power,  as  the  petitioner  in  the  parable  had  his  neighbour ; 
we  cannot  put  God  in  a  dilemma  between  granting  our 
request  and  losing  the  thing  which  He  values  more  than  all 
else,  viz.  His  own  comfort  or  felicity.  If  God  be  really  a 
Being  who  cares  more  for  His  own  felicity  than  for  man's 
good,  One  living  high  up  in  heaven  a  life  of  ease  careless  of 
mankind,  it  is  not  in  my  power  to  disturb  His  serene  exist- 
ence by  any  prayers  of  mine,  however  urgent.  I  may  cry,  but 
He  does  not  hear,  or  hears  as  one  who  heareth  not.  He  is  too 
remote  from  this  world  to  be  disturbed  by  its  noise,  or  to  be 
interested  in  its  concerns ;  He  stands  upon  the  vault  of  heaven 
and  looks  down  calmly  with  His  arm  in  His  bosom,  a  passionless 
spectator  of  the  tragedies  and  comedies  of  time.  And  my  per- 
plexity is  to  know  whether  this  be  indeed  the  character  of  Deity. 
To  me  it  now  seems  as  if  it  were  ;  for  I  cry,  and  receive  no 
answer  :  I  knock,  and  no  door  of  relief  is  open  to  me.  And 
the  parable  does  not  solve  my  doubt,  it  simply  leaves  me  where 
it  found  me."  All  this  is  perfectly  true,  and  Jesus  in  effect 
admitted  it  to  be  so.  For  after  uttering  the  parable  He  went 
on  immediately  to  make  a  solemn  declaration  on  His  personal 


156  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  \ 

authority,  on  which,  and  not  on  the  parable,  He  desired  the 
tried  soul  to  lay  the  stress  of  its  faith :  "  And  /  say  to  you, 
Ask,  and  it  shall  be  given  unto  you ;  seek,  and  ye  shall  find ; 
knock,  and  it  shall  be  opened  unto  you."  Jesus  pledges  His 
word  that  those  who  act  in  accordance  with  this  counsel  shall 
find  the  event  justify  it.  The  Kayio  with  which  the  sentence 
begins  is  all  the  more  emphatic  that  the  vfiiv  \4ya>  which 
follows  occurs  for  the  second  time  here,  being  found  in  the 
previous  sentence  which  forms  the  concluding  part  of  the 
parable.  One  might  have  expected  the  emphatic  personal 
pronoun  to  be  used  in  the  first  instance  rather  than  in  the 
second.  There  must  be  a  reason  why  the  reverse  is  the  case, 
and  it  is  not  difficult  to  discover.  The  first  /  say  to  you 
is  unemphatic  because  the  statement  which  follows  rests  not 
on  the  Speaker's  authority,  but  on  the  reason  of  things.  Any 
intelligent  person  could  say  what  Christ  says  there,  for  it  is 
obvious  to  every  one  on  reflection  how  the  scene  described 
must  end.  The  man  in  bed  must  get  up  and  serve  his  neigh- 
bour. But  the  second  statement,  to  the  effect  that  those  who 
pray  to  God  shall  likewise  be  heard,  rests  absolutely  on 
Christ's  authority.  It  is  not  given  as  a  fact  which  is  self- 
evident,  but  as  a  fact  which  He,  the  Speaker,  knows  to  be 
true.  Therefore  in  this  case  He  says,  "And  /  say  to  you, 
Ask,  and  ye  shall  receive."  But  it  may  be  asked,  If  we  are 
to  take  this  momentous  matter  on  Christ's  word,  why  speak 
the  parable  at  all,  why  argue ;  why  not  simply  assert  ?  In 
reply  we  say,  Because  the  parable  is  not  good  for  everything, 
it  is  not  therefore  good  for  nothing.  It  serves  at  least  to  put 
doubting  ones  into  better  spirits,  to  cast  a  gleam  of  hope 
athwart  the  landscape,  to  induce  them  to  pray  on  in  spite  of 
discouragements,  until  faith  has  surmounted  her  doubts,  and 
come  to  see  that  God  is  not  the  selfish,  indifferent,  heartless 
One  He  seems,  but  what  Jesus  called  him  in  the  end  of  this 
lesson  on  prayer — a  heavenly  Father. 

From  the  sentence  in  which  that  blessed  name  is  used  we 
have  already  learned  that  throughout  this  lesson  on  prayer 
Jesus  supposes  the  Holy  Spirit,  or  personal  advancement  in 
spiritual  life,  to  be  the  chief  object  of  desire.  Hence  it  follows 
that  even  that  best  gift  is  not  given  forthwith,  though  certain 
to  be  given  eventually ;  an  inference  in  entire  accordance,  it 


CH.  vi.]  The   Unjust  Judge.  157 

will  be  observed,  with  the  teaching  of  the  parable  considered 
in  the  last  chapter.  It  will  be  found,  that  is  to  say,  in 
experience,  that  God,  the  Father  in  heaven,  seems  for  a  time 
unwilling  to  grant  to  those  who  seek  first  the  kingdom  even 
the  very  thing  they  above  all  things  desire,  viz.  righteousness. 
There  will  be  phases  of  experience  in  which  it  shall  seem  to 
disciples  that  they  ask  for  bread  and  get  only  a  stone,  or  for 
fish  and  get  a  serpent,  or  for  an  egg  and  get  a  scorpion. 
The  possibility  or  even  probability  of  such  experiences  is 
implied  in  the  simple  fact  that  Jesus  thought  it  necessary  to 
refer  to  such  hypothetical  cases.  It  is  because  there  are 
times  when  God  seems  to  play  the  cruel  part  described  that 
Jesus  puts  the  questions  :  "  If  a  son  shall  ask  bread  of  any  of 
you  that  is  a  father,  will  he  give  him  a  stone  ?  or  if  he  ask  a 
fish,  will  he  for  a  fish  give  him  a  serpent  ?  or  if  he  shall  ask 
an  eggt  will  he  offer  him  a  scorpion  ?"  He  knew  that  such 
dark  thoughts  concerning  God  lurked  unavowed  in  even  good 
men's  hearts,  and  therefore  He  put  them  into  words,  in  the 
hope  that  by  bringing  them  into  the  full  light  of  consciousness 
doubters  might  see  it  to  be  utterly  incredible  that  God  could 
do  what  even  evil  men  are  incapable  of,  and  so  be  prepared 
for  accepting  with  cordial  faith  the  argument  d  fortiori  with 
which  the  doctrine  winds  up :  "  How  much  more  shall  your 
heavenly  Father  give  the  Holy  Spirit  to  them  that  ask 
Him?" 

THE  UNJUST  JUDGE. 

And  he  spake  to  them  a  parable  to  the  effect  that  it  is  necessary  that  they1 
should  always  pray,  and  not  lose  heart?  saying,  There  was  in  a 
certain  city,  a  certain  judge,  who  feared  not  Cod,  nor  regarded  man  : 
and  there%jas  a  widow  in  that  city;  and  she  kept  coming3  to  him, 
saying,  Avenge  me  of  mine  adversary.  And  he  was  not  willing  for 
a  time  :  but  afterwards  he  said  in  himself,  Though  I  fear  not  Cod, 
nor  regard  man  ;  yet  on  account  of  this  widow  causing  me  trouble,  1 
will  avenge  her,  lest  at  last,  coming,  she  strike  me.*    And  the  Lord 

»  Many  MSS.  have  ahrovQ  after  vpomu%taOM.     It  is  wanting  in  T.  R. 

•  tyKOKtiv,  a  Pauline  word ;  vide  Eph.  iii.  13  ;  2  Thess.  iii.  13 ;  GaL  vi. 
o  &c.  8  V9xlT0> tne  imperfect. 

4  The  words  tic  riXoc  may  be  connected  either  with  ipxo/"»"l  or  "with 
iiruiridZy.  The  construction  depends  on  the  sense  assigned  to  the  verb. 
Vide  exposition. 


158  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  1. 

said,  Hear  what  the  judge  of  unrighteousness  saith.  And  shall  not 
Cod  avenge  His  elect,  who  cry  unto  Him  day  and  night,  and  He  delay i 
{to  interpose)  in  their  cause  fl  I  tell  you  that  He  will  avenge  them 
speedily.  Nevertheless  when  the  Son  of  man  cometh,  shall  He  find 
faith  0n  the  earth  f — Luke  xviii.  1 — 8. 

IN  this  parable  the  Hearer  of  prayer  is  appropriately  repre- 
sented by  a  judge,  not  as  in  last  parable  by  a  private  indi- 
vidual, the  prayers  which  He  seems  to  disregard  being  ex 
hypothesi  addressed  to  Him  by  the  collective  body  of  His 
people  in  His  capacity  of  Divine  Ruler,  exercising  a  provid- 
ence and  government  over  all.  The  present  parable  shows 
not  less  felicitously  than  the  preceding  the  power  of  impor- 
tunity to  prevail  even  in  the  most  discouraging  situation. 
No  situation  could  be  conceived  more  unfavourable  than  the 
one  depicted  here,  whether  we  regard  the  man  who  occupies 
the  seat  of  justice  or  the  individual  who  appears  before  him 
as  a  petitioner.  The  judge  is  described  as  one  who  neither 
fears  God  Almighty,  nor  regards  men  worthy  of  esteem,8 
terms  proverbially  current  among  Jews  and  Greeks  alike  to 
denote  a  person  of  utterly  unprincipled  character.3  He  is  an 
unprincipled,  lawless  tyrant,  devoid  of  the  sense  of  responsi- 
bility and  of  every  sentiment  of  humanity  and  justice.  The 
picture  is  not  an  ideal  one  ;  there  were  such  judges  in  those 
days ;  there  are  such  judges  in  the  same  quarter  of  the  world 
still,  if  we  may  trust  a  recent  writer  on  Palestine,  who,  after 
describing  the  Pasha  of  Damascus  as  an  obese,  gluttonous, 
sensual,  slothful,  indifferent  mortal,  remarks,  "  It  is  the  mis- 
fortune of  Turkey  that  the  majority  of  the  governing  class 
are  men  ignorant  and  fanatical,  sensual  and  inert,  notoriously 
corrupt  and  tyrannical,  who  have  succeeded  only  in  ruining 
and  impoverishing  the  countries  they  were  sent  to  govern."4 
The  judge  of  our  parable  is  certainly  a  bad  sample  of  a  low 
kind,  for  he  not  only  is  one  who  fears  not  God,  nor  regards 
man,  but  describes  himself  as  such :    "  Though  I  fear  not 

1  There  are  two  readings  here :  ral  paicpoOvpwv,  as  in  T.  R.,  and  kw 
paicpoBvptT,  generally  preferred  by  critics  on  such  good  grounds  that  I  feel 
justified  in  adopting  it.     For  further  particulars  vide  exposition. 

*  Bengel  distinguishes  the  two  verbs  Qofiovpai  and  ivrplxofnu  thus 
Solemus  <po(3tloQcu  potentiam,  ivrptviaOat  existimationem, 

*  For  examples  in  Greek  authors  vide  Wetstein. 

*  Conder,  'Tent-work  in  Palestine,'  i.  p.  251. 


CH.  vi.]  The  Unjust  Judge.  15$ 

God,  nor  regard  man."  '  It  is  true  he  says  this  not  toothers, 
but  to  himself;  but  it  is  a  sign  of  deep  depravity  that  he  can 
even  go  this  length.  Ordinary  villains  try  to  hide  their 
character  even  from  themselves,  but  this  consummate  villain 
with  profligate  frankness  acknowledges  to  himself  that  he  is» 
quite  as  bad  as  other  people  think  him.  He  does  not  heed 
the  evil  opinion  entertained  of  him  by  other  men  and  by  his 
own  conscience  ;  he  promulgates  its  truth  and  laughs  at  it 
as  a  good  joke.  There  could  not  possibly  be  a  worse  char- 
acter, or  a  more  hopeless  tribunal  than  that  over  which  such 
a  man  presides.  This  judge  you  have  no  chance  of  influenc- 
ing except  through  his  self-love.  If  he  can  be  made  to  feel 
that  it  will  be  more  advantageous  or  less  troublesome  to 
do  right  than  to  do  wrong,  he  will  do  right,  but  for  no 
other  reason. 

The  petitioner  who  appears  before  this  corrupt  judge  is, 
primd  facie,  a  very  unlikely  person  to  prevail  with  him.  She 
is  a  friendless,  destitute  woman,  too  weak  to  compel,  too 
poor  to  buy,  justice ;  or  to  say  all  in  a  single  word,  a  widow, 
who  in  the  East  was  a  synonym  for  helplessness,  a  prey 
to  oppressors  and  knaves  of  every  description,  pious  or 
impious,  as  many  a  pathetic  text  of  Scripture  proves. 
Witness  that  stern  word  of  the  prophet  Isaiah  against  the 
degenerate  rulers  of  Israel :  "  Thy  princes  are  rebellious, 
and  companions  of  thieves:  every  one  loveth  gifts,  and 
followeth  after  rewards  :  they  judge  not  the  fatherless,  neither 
doth  the  cause  of  the  widow  come  unto  them ; "  and  that 
bitter,  indignant  word  of  Christ  concerning  the  Pharisees  of 
His  time :  "  Ye  devour  widows'  houses,  and  for  a  pretence 
make  long  prayers."*  A  widow  was  one  who  was  pretty 
sure  to  have  plenty  of  adversaries  if  she  had  anything  to 
devour,  and  very  unlikely  to  find  any  one  on  the  seat  of 
judgment  willing  to  take  the  pains  to  look  into  her  cause 
and  to  grant  protection  and  redress.  She  is  therefore  most 
fitly  selected  to  represent  a  petitioner  for  justice  who  has  the 

1  Weizsacker  in  the  place  already  referred  to  mentions  soliloquising  on 
the  part  of  the  actors  in  the  parables  as  another  characteristic  of  the  later 
parables  of  Luke's  Gospel. 

1  Isaiah  i.  23;  Matt,  xxiii.  14.  For  some  good  remarks  on  the  forlorn 
position  of  widows  in  the  East,  vide  Trench,  pp.  492-3. 


i6o  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  \ 

worst  possible  prospect  of  success  in  his  plea,  most  fitly 
chosen  to  represent  the  Church  or  people  of  God  in  their 
most  forlorn  plight,  overborne  by  an  unbelieving,  godless 
world,  and  apparently  forgotten  even  of  their  God. 

Yet,  as  the  parable  goes  on  to  show,  there  is  hope  even 
here.  Desperate  as  the  situation  is,  even  a  widow  may  find 
means  of  obtaining  redress  even  from  such  a  profligate 
administrator  of  injustice  and  perpetrator  of  iniquity  under 
forms  of  law.  Corrupt  judges  in  the  East,  as  elsewhere,  may 
be  influenced  in  three  ways;  by  intimidation,  by  bribery, 
and  by  bothering.  The  poor,  friendless  widow  could  not 
wield  the  first  two  modes  of  influence,  but  the  third  was 
open  to  her.  She  had  a  tongue,  and  could  persecute  the 
judge  with  her  clamour  until  he  should  be  glad  to  be  rid 
of  her  by  letting  her  have  what  she  wanted.  And  this  judge, 
profligate  though  he  was,  feared  a  woman's  tongue  made 
eloquent  by  a  sense  of  wrong  and  extreme  misery.  He  has 
experienced  it  before,  and  he  knows  what  is  possible.  There- 
fore he  thinks  it  best  not  to  drive  the  widow  to  extremities, 
and  gives  in  in  good  time.  He  is  deaf  to  her  entreaties  for  a 
while,  too  indolent  to  listen,  perhaps  accustomed  to  treat  all 
complaints  at  first  with  apathy,  and  to  wait  till  he  has  roused 
the  furies,  as  mules  sometimes  refuse  to  start  on  their  journey 
till  they  have  been  sufficiently  thrashed  by  the  driver.  He 
waited  till  he  saw  the  storm  beginning  to  rise,  the  subdued, 
respectful  tone  of  supplication  rising  into  the  shriller  key  and 
more  piercing  notes  of  impatience  and  passion.  Then  he 
began  to  say  to  himself,  "  I  care  nothing  for  justice ;  I  am 
neither  pious,  righteous,  nor  humane  ;  I  regard  solely  my 
own  pleasure  and  comfort ;  but  this  widow  threatens  to  be 
troublesome ;  her  reiterated  entreaties  have  already  begun 
to  bore  and  bother  me ;  I  will  give  a  verdict  in  her  favour, 
lest  at  last  she,  coming,  strike  me."  And  so  the  widow  gains 
her  cause,  not  through  regard  to  justice,  but  through  the  very 
love  of  ease  which  at  first  stood  in  her  way. 

It  will  be  observed  that  in  our  free  version  of  the  judge's 
soliloquy,  in  which  he  prudently  made  up  his  mind  to  sur- 
render, we  have  put  a  strong  sense  on  the  words  v-nunn.6.^  jxe, 
rendered  in  the  English  version  "  weary  me."  In  doing  so 
we  are  not  guided  simply  by  the  dictionary  sense  of  the  verb, 


CH.  vi.]  The  Unjust  Judge.  161 

for  it  may  be  rendered  either  way,  but  by  what  seems  required 
by  the  situation.1  For  we  must  hold  that  the  word  denotes 
something  apprehended  in  the  future  worse  than  anything 
that  has  yet  happened.  Now  the  judge  already  feels  bored. 
He  assigns  as  a  reason  for  granting  the  widow's  request  that 
she  plagues  or  worries  him  with  her  demands.  If,  therefore, 
we  render  the  term  in  question  by  some  such  mild  word  as 
'weary'  or  tease,  we  get  something  like  a  tautology:  She 
worries  me;  I  will  do  her  right,  lest  by  her  continual  coming 
she  annoy  me.  How  much  more  expressive  and  characteristic 
to  make  the  judge  say,  "  She  bothers  me  ;  I  will  do  her  right, 
lest  at  last  she,  coming,  go  the  length  of  using  her  fist  instead 
of  her  tongue."  This  rendering,  therefore,  we,  with  Bengel,* 
Meyer,  and  Godet,  decidedly  prefer,  preferring  also  what 
goes  along  therewith,  the  construction  of  els  rekos  with  the 
verb,  not  with  the  participle  ipxofj.evr],  and  rendering  it  not 
'continually,'  as  it  requires  to  be  in  the  latter  case,  but 
'at  length.'  To  this  rendering  it  may  be  objected  that  it 
is  not  credible  that  the  judge  really  feared  physical  violence 
on  the  part  of  the  widow.  This  is  a  very  prosaic  objection. 
For,  as  Godet  observes,  there  is  pleasantry  in  the  word.8 
The  judge  humorously  affects  to  fear  the  exasperated  widow's 
fists.  There  is  also  pictorial  expressiveness  in  the  word. 
Striking  is  the  symbol  of  a  passion  that  spurns  all  control, 
which,  however  it  manifests  itself,  whether  by  words  or  by 
blows,  is  the  thing  the  judge  really  fears.  The  whirlwind  of 
a  passion  roused  to  its  height  by  a  keen  sense  of  wrong  is  a 
thing  no  man  cares  to  encounter.  As  for  the  question  of 
fact,  whether  such  a  passion  could  even  at  last  lead  to 
physical  violence,  it  is  one  we  do  not  care  to  decide  very 
confidently  in  the  negative.     It  is  hard  to  say  what  a  poor 

1  It  occurs  again  in  I  Cor.  ix.  27,  where  it  clearly  should  be  rendered 
'  beat.'     I  beat  my  body  as  a  boxer  beats  an  antagonist 

1  Bengel  says  virtairiafy,  suggilet.  Hyperbole,  judicis  injusti  et  im- 
patientis  personam  conveniens.  He  adds :  Hue  refer,  i\q  riXog,  nam  Ipxoftivi 
est  quasi  irapiXKov  quo  praetermisso  sententia  tamen  quodammodo  integra 
est,  quod  tamen,  adhibitum,  orationem  facit  suavem,  moratam,  &c.  Field 
('Otium  Norv.')  objects  to  this  view  that  it  demands  the  aorist  of  the 
verb  instead  of  the  present,  because  it  points  to  a  concluding  act,  while 
the  present  expresses  continuous  action. 

•  11  y  a  dans  cette  parole,  une  teinte  de  plaisanterie. 

x 


i6»  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ '.    [book  i. 

widow    provoked    beyond    endurance    by  the    unrighteous 
indifference  of  a  judge,  will  do. 

In  the  case  supposed  in  this  parable  then,  not  less  than  in 
that  supposed  in  the  other,  it  is  evident  to  every  one  that 
importunity   must   inevitably   triumph.      We   are    therefore 
prepared  to  pass  on  to  the  consideration  of  the  application 
made   by  the   Speaker  to  the  case  of  a  suffering  Church 
praying  to  God.     We  observe  that  the  evangelist  introduces 
the  epilogue  by  the  formula,  "And  the  Lord  said."     It  is  a 
formula  of  frequent  occurrence  in   his   Gospel,  and  it   has 
attracted  the  notice  of  critics,  especially  in  connection  with 
the    title  '  Lord,'  used    where   the  other  evangelists  would 
employ  the  name   Jesus,  and   not    unnaturally  regarded   as 
one   of  the   traces  in   this   Gospel   of  the  influence  of  the 
faith  of  the  apostolic  Church   on   the  mind   of  its  author. 
Here  the   formula  seems  intended   to  mark  the  important 
character  of  the  statement  which  follows.     The  evangelist  is 
not  content  that  it  should  come  in  simply  as  the  conclusion 
of  a  parable  ;  he  desires  it  to  stand  out  prominently  as  a  sub- 
stantive part  of  Christ's  teaching.     Looking  then  into  this 
statement  as  one  thus  proclaimed  to  be  of  great  importance, 
we  find  that  the  nota  bene  of  the  evangelist  is  fully  justified. 
The  application  of  the  parable  is  in  effect  an  argument  d 
fortiori.     If  even  an  unjust  judge  can   be  moved  to  grant 
redress  to  a  forlorn  widow,  what  may  not  be  expected  of  a 
righteous  God  by  those  who  stand  to  Him  in  the  relation  of 
an  elect  people,  chosen  out  of  the  world  to  be  the  heirs  of  His 
kingdom  ?     They  ought  to  feel  assured  that  God  will  not 
allow  His  purpose  in  their  election  to  be  frustrated,  but  will 
certainly  and  effectively  give  them  the  kingdom,  and  so  pos- 
sess their  soul  in  peace,  though  they  be  but  a  little  flock  in  a 
wilderness  swarming  with  wolves  and  ravenous  beasts  of  every 
description.      But   unhappily   the    'little   flock,'   the  'elect' 
race,  in  their  actual  position  are  not  able  to  appreciate  the 
force  of  this  a  fortiori  argument,  because  God  seems  to  them 
the  opposite  of  righteous,  and  the  very  idea  of  their  election 
an  idle,  fond  dream.     Deep  down  in  their  hearts  there  may 
be  a  faith  both  in  God's  righteousness  and  in  His  gracious 
purpose,  but  it  is  a  faith  bewildered  and  confounded  by  the 
chaotic  condition  of  the  world,  which  seems  incompatible  with 


ch.  vi.]  The  Unjust  Judge.  163 

the  reality  of  a  moral  order  maintained  by  a  righteous  and 
benignant  Providence.  They  are  in  a  state  of  mind  similar  to 
that  of  the  prophet  Habakkuk  when  he  penned  those  sublime 
words:  "Thou  art  of  purer  eyes  than  to  behold  evil,  and 
canst  not  look  on  iniquity  :  wherefore  then  lookest  Thou  upon 
them  that  deal  treacherously,  and  holdest  Thy  tongue  when 
the  wicked  devoureth  the  man  that  is  more  righteous  than  he  ? 
And  makest  men  as  the  fishes  of  the  sea,  as  the  creeping 
things,  that  have  no  ruler  over  them  ?  "  x  The  prophet  was 
distracted  by  the  glaring  contradiction  between  his  idea  of 
God  and  facts.  He  regarded  God  as  a  Being  who  could  not 
look  on  with  indifference  while  an  iniquity  was  being  perpe- 
trated like  that  wrought  by  Babylonian  tyrants,  who  threw 
their  net  of  conquest  into  the  sea  of  the  world  and  drew  whole 
nations  as  captives  away  from  their  native  land  ;  and  yet  God 
does  actually  look  on,  a  passive  spectator,  while  that  very 
thing  is  being  done  to  Israel,  His  elect  people.  Precisely 
similar  is  the  state  of  mind  of  the  '  elect,'  whom  Christ  has  in 
view.  For  men  in  this  mental  condition  the  a  fortiori  argu- 
ment suggested  can  have  little  force,  for  they  stand  in  doubt 
of  the  very  things  on  which  the  d  fortiori  element  rests  :  the 
righteousness  or  faithfulness  of  God,  and  the  reality  of  the 
covenant  relation  implied  in  election.  And  Christ  was  per- 
fectly well  aware  of  this,  and  showed  that  He  was  by  what 
He  said.  For  He  is  not  content,  we  observe,  with  merely 
asking  the  question,  "  Shall  not  God  avenge  His  elect  ones  ?" 
as  if  there  were  no  room  for  reasonable  doubt  in  the  matter, 
or  as  if  doubt  were  impious.  He  adds  words  which  clearly 
show  how  sensible  He  is  of  the  difficulty  of  believing  in  God's 
judicial  interposition,  in  the  circumstances.  The  added  words 
contain  three  virtual  admissions  of  the  difficulty.  The  first  is 
contained  in  the  description  given  of  the  elect  ones  as  a  people 
in  the  position  of  crying  unto  God  day  and  night,  and  of  not  I 
being  heard  by  Him.  Such  we  take  to  be  the  import  of  the 
second  half  of  the  seventh  verse,  rendered  in  our  version, 
'  which  cry  day  and  night  unto  Him,  though  He  bear  long 
with  them."  We  adopt  the  reading  fxaKpoOvixel,  found  in  the 
chief  uncials,  and  approved  by  the  critics,  as  the  more  probable 
just  because  the  less  obvious,  and  we  take  it  as  depending  not 
>  Habakkuk  i.  13,  14. 

M  2 


164  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  i. 

on  cv  fxrj  Ttovqar],  the  construction  required  if  we  adopt  the 
reading  ixaKpo6v^.S>v,  but  on  t<ov  fioavrcw.  The  whole  sentence 
from  this  point  onwards  is  in  effect  a  relative  clause  descrip- 
tive of  the  situation  of  the  elect.  Their  position  is  that  of 
persons  "who  cry  to  Him  day  and  night,  and  yet  He  delays 
interposing  in  their  cause "  [k-n'  clvtols).1  The  same  meaning 
comes  out  if  we  adopt  the  other  reading  and  construction. 
What  is  then  said  is,  "  Shall  not  God  eventually  avenge  His 
elect,  although  He  delays  in  their  case,  while  they  cry  unto 
Him  day  and  night  ?"  Thus  on  either  reading  or  construc- 
tion the  words  undoubtedly  contain  the  thought  that  there  is 
such  a  delay  in  answering  prayer  as  is  extremely  trying  tc 
faith.  The  elect  ones  are  in  the  position  of  David  when 
he  complained,  "  O  my  God,  I  cry  in  the  daytime,  but  Thou 
hearest  not ;  and  in  the  night  season,  and  am  not  silent." 

The  second  admission  of  the  difficulty  of  believing  in  God 
is  contained  in  the  asseveration  which  follows  in  the  next 
verse  :  "  I  tell  you  that  He  will  avenge  them  speedPy."  It 
is  very  significant  that  Jesus  deems  it  necessary  to  make  this 
strong  assertion.  It  is  evident  that  He  relies  more  for  the 
inspiration  of  faith  into  doubting  spirits  on  His  own  personal 
assurance  than  on  the  a  fortiori  argument.  It  is  a  repetition 
in  effect  of  the  emphatic  "  I  say  unto  you "  in  the  former 
parable.     It  is  one  seeking  by  the  emphasis  with  which  He 

1  For  the  suggestion  that  paKpoOvpfl  is  dependent  on  /3owvrwv  I  am 
Indebted  to  Dr.  Field,  who  kindly  communicated  his  opinion  in  a  letter  to 
my  colleague,  Dr.  Douglas,  Principal  of  the  Free  Church  College,  Glasgow. 
Dr.  Field's  view  of  the  whole  passage,  since  published  in  'Otium  Norvi- 
cense,'  is  the  same  as  that  given  above.  In  support  of  the  use  of  the  verb 
pctKpoOvpti  in  the  sense  of  delay  (moram  facere)  he  refers  to  Ecclus.  xxxv. 
18,  and  also  to  the  following  passage  in  Chrysostom's  works:  ovk  oUrtipu 
to  yvvaiov  (the  Syroph.  woman)  dXXa  fiaicpoOvpti,  /Sin'Xo/ttvof  rbv  \av9drovTa 
6ri<ravpbv  iv  rij  yvvatKi  KaraOi)\ov  aTracrt  iroTijtxai.  — Opp.  T.,  iv.  p.  45 *>  •"•• 
Ed.  Ben.  The  solution  of  the  grammatical  difficulty  is  at  once  simple  and 
satisfactory,  and  it  is  confirmed  by  the  reference  made  by  Dr.  Field,  and 
introduced  in  the  text,  to  the  experience  of  David,  expressed  in  very  similar 
terms.  The  passage  in  Ecclus.  is  still  more  closely  parallel  It  runs, 
"  For  the  Lord  will  not  be  slack  (ou  nrj  j3paovvy),  neither  will  the  Mighty 
be  patient  towards  them  "  (ovtik  firj  fiaKpoQvuuari  iir'  ovtoIq — said  with  refer- 
ence to  the  prayers  of  the  poor).  Dr.  Field  proposes  this  translation  of 
the  clause  :  "  Who  cry  unto  Him  day  and  night,  and  He  deferreth  Hit 
anger  on  their  behalf." 


ch.  vi. J  The   Unjust  Judge.  165 

declares  His  own  belief  to  communicate  faith  to  other  minds, 
even  as  David  sought  to  inspire  courage  and  hope  in  the 
breasts  of  his  brethren  by  the  hearty  counsel  "Wait,  I  say, 
on  the  Lord."  We  must  bear  this  in  mind  in  interpreting 
the  closing  expression  of  this  declaration,  *  speedily '  (iv 
raxei).  If,  as  some  think,  the  phrase  signifies 'soon/ 'with- 
out delay '  it  must  be  understood  rhetorically,  not  as  a  prosaic 
statemen.  of  fact.  In  any  case  the  exclusion  of  delay  implies 
delay,  the  excuse  implies  that  there  is  ground  for  accusation. 
The  Speaker  means  to  say  that  whatever  delay  there  may 
have  been  in  the  past,  there  will  be  no  further  delay.  But 
we  doubt  whether  the  phrase  is  thus  correctly  rendered.  It 
means,  we  think,  not  soon,  but  jsuddenl£.__  So  taken,  the 
expression  conveys  a  truth  which  we  find  elsewhere  taught  in 
Scripture,  viz.  that  however  long  the  critical  action  of  Divine 
providence  is  delayed,  it  always  comes  suddenly  at  last,  "as 
a  thief  in  the  night."  Slow  but  sure  and  sudden  at  the  crisis, 
such  is  the  doctrine  of  Scripture  as  expressed  in  the  pro- 
verbial phrase  just  quoted,  in  reference  to  the  action  of  God 
in  history.  It  is  a  doctrine  confirmed  by  the  historic  records 
of  nations,  as  exemplified  in  the  case  of  Israel  herself,  whose 
awful  doom,  foretold  by  ancient  prophets  and  long  delayed, 
at  last  overtook  her  literally  like  a  thief  in  the  night.  It  was 
probably  to  this  very  doom  impending  over  Israel  that  Jesus 
referred  when  He  said,  "  I  tell  you  that  He  will  avenge  them 
iv  Taxct:  "  l 

That  this  phrase  does  not  necessarily  exclude  delay  in  the 
future  any  more  than  in  the  past  appears  from  the  final 
words,  which  contain  the  third  implicit  admission  that  there 
is  much  in  the  experience  of  God's  people  to  try  their  faith  in 
His  righteousness  and  love.  "  Nevertheless  when  the  Son  of 
man  cometh,  shall  He  find  faith  upon  the  earth?"  The 
question  amounts  to  an  assertion  of  the  negative.2  It  does 
not  mean  that  there  will  be  no  Christianity,  no  piety  in  the 
earth  or  in  Palestine  when  the  Son  of  man  comes  to  judge 
the  enemies  of  His  gospel  and  to  vindicate  the  rights  of  His 

1  Godet  also  takes  lv  ra'x«  in  the  sense  of  suddenly,  "non  bientot  mais 
bien  vite." 

8  Bengel  on  ipa  finely  remarks :  magnum  »}0ot  habet,  oratione  negant« 
per  interrogationem  temperata. 


1 66  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ.  •  [book  l 

followers.  It  means  that  the  faith  in  demand,  the  faith  He 
wishes  to  inspire,  faith  in  God's  providence,  will  have  all  but 
died  out  in  the  hearts  even  of  the  godly,  even  of  the  elect. 
So  long  will  the  Judge  delay  His  coming,  that  it  will  come  to 
this.  What  an  ample  admission  of  trial  involved  to  faith  in 
God's  peculiar  manner  of  acting  in  providence  !  And  there  is 
no  exaggeration  in  the  statement.  It  is  often  the  case  that 
God's  action  as  a  deliverer  is  delayed  until  His  people  have 
ceased  to  hope  for  deliverance.  So  it  was  with  Israel  in 
Egypt;  so  was  it  with  her  again  in  Babylon.  "Grief  was 
calm  and  hope  was  dead  "  among  the  exiles  when  the  word 
came  that  they  were  to  return  to  their  own  land  ;  and  then 
the  news  seemed  too  good  to  be  true.  They  were  "  like  them 
that  dream  "  when  they  heard  the  good  tidings. 

This  method  of  Divine  action — long  delay  followed  by  a 
sudden  crisis — so  frankly  recognised  by  Christ,  is  one  to 
which  we  find  it  hard  to  reconcile  ourselves.  These  parables 
help  us  so  far,  but  they  do  not  settle  everything.  They 
contain  no  philosophy  of  Divine  delay,  but  simply  a  proclam- 
ation of  the  fact,  and  an  assurance  that  in  spite  of  delay  all 
will  go  well  at  the  last  with  those  who  trust  in  God.  It  is 
very  natural  that  we  should  desire  more,  that  we  should  seek 
the  rationale  of  the  mystery  so  strikingly  expressed  in  those 
words,  "  One  day  is  with  the  Lord  as  a  thousand  years,  and 
a  thousand  years  as  one  day."  Why  is  the  Divine  temper  so 
calm  that  He  can  regard  events  when  they  happen  as  we 
regard  those  which  happened  a  thousand  years  ago,  and  yet 
so  impulsive  that  at  the  end  of  a  thousand  years  He  acts  as 
suddenly  and  hotly  as  we  men  do  when  our  purposes  are  just 
freshly  formed  in  our  hearts  ?  Unbelief  will  reply,  Because 
God  is  simply  a  synonym  for  a  stream  of  tendency  which 
silently  moves  on  like  the  river  Niagara  till  it  approaches  its 
natural  consummation,  when  it  makes  its  mighty  plunge,  to 
the  astonishment  of  all  spectators.  Christians  cannot  accept 
this  solution.  They  must  find  a  way  of  reconciling  delay 
with  the  reality  of  a  Divine  purpose,  and  with  the  gracious- 
ness  of  that  purpose.  And  it  is  not  impossible  to  find  such  a 
way.  Delay  is  not  incompatible  with  grace.  It  is  simply  the 
result  of  love  taking  counsel  with  wisdom,  so  that  the  very 
end  aimed  at  may  not  be  frustrated  by  too  great  haste  to 


CH.  vi.]  The  Unjust  Judge.  167 

attain  it.'  Men  must  be  prepared  for  receiving  and  appreciat- 
ing the  benefit  God  means  to  bestow  on  them,  and  delay  is 
an  important  element  in  the  discipline  necessary  for  that 
purpose.  The  child  cannot  at  once  enter  on  its  inheritance  ; 
it  must  be  under  tutors  and  governors  in  order  that  it  may 
at  length  enjoy  and  rightly  use  the  freedom  to  which  it  is 
destined. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


THE  PARABLE  OF  EXTRA  SERVICE  > 

Oft,    THE    EXACTING   DEMANDS   OF    THE    KINGDOM,    AND   THE   TEMPE1 
NEEDFUL  TO   MEET  THEM. 

On  a  certain  occasion  Jesus  said  to  His  disciples,  Which  of  you  is  there, 
having  a  servant  ploughing  or  feeding  cattle,  who  will  say  to  him  on 
his  returning  from  the  field,  Go  straightway x  and  sit  down  to  meat  t 
And  will  not  rather,  on  the  contrary,  say  to  him,  Make  ready  where- 
with J  may  sup,  and  gird  thyself,  and  serve  me  till  I  have  eaten  and 
drunken  ;  and  after  that  thou  shall  eat  and  drink  t  Doth  he  thank 
the  servant  because  he  hath  done  the  things  commanded  him  f  I  trow 
not}  So  likewise  ye,  when  ye  shall  have  done  all  the  things  com- 
manded you,  say,  We  are  unprofitable  servants  :  we  have  {but)  done 
that  which  it  was  our  duty  to  do. — Luke  xvii.  7 — 10. 

Little  or  no  help  in  the  interpretation  of  this  parable  can 
be  got  from  the  previous  context.  There  is  no  apparent  con- 
nection between  it  and  what  goes  before,  and  it  would  only 
lead  us  out  of  the  track  which  conducts  towards  its  true 
meaning  to  endeavour  to  invent  a  connection.  Critics  who 
are  ever  on  the  outlook  for  traces  of  tendency  in  the  Gospels 
tell  us  that  the  parable  and  the  two  preceding  verses  are  con- 
nected by  the  Pauline  bias  of  both.  As  in  these  two  verses 
Jesus,  in  true  Pauline  fashion,  teaches  the  omnipotence  of 
faith  to  disciples  who  had  asked  Him  to  increase  their  share 
of  that  grace,  so  in  the  parable  He  inculcates  the  not  less 

»  The  tvQiuc  is  to  be  taken  with  iraptXdHiv  following,  not  as  in  A.  V.,  with 
toil  going  before.  Bengel  truly  remarks  that  whatever  the  master  said 
He  would  say  it  at  once,  so  that  tiOeuc  is  superfluous  as  joined  to  tpti. 

•  The  words  ei>  Soku>  are  omitted  in  some  MSS.,  probably  by  mistake  of 
the  transcriber  through  similar  ending  (airy  IokA). 


ch.  vii.1       The  Parable  of  Extra  Service.  169 

Pauline  doctrine  of  the  insufficiency  of  works.1  We  will  not 
deny  that  the  Pauline  character  of  these  two  sections  may 
very  possibly  have  been  what  chiefly  interested  the  evangel- 
ist's mind,  and  led  him  to  introduce  them  into  his  narrative 
in  juxtaposition.  In  that  case,  if  we  were  bound  as  exposi- 
tors to  have  supreme  regard  to  Luke's  motive  as  a  reporter, 
we  should  have  to  relegate  the  present  parable  to  the  second 
head  in  our  classification  of  the  parables,  and  to  treat  it  as  a 
parable  of  grace,  designed  to  teach  that  in  the  kingdom  of 
God  all  is  of  grace,  and  not  of  debt,  or  that  merit  in  man 
before  God  is  impossible,  the  key-note  of  the  whole  being  the 
closing  words,  "  We  are  unprofitable  servants."  But  we  do 
not  feel  bound  to  adopt  as  our  clue  the  private  feelings  of  the 
evangelist.  It  is  quite  conceivable  that  what  chiefly  interested 
his  mind  in  reporting  the  parable  was  its  bearing  on  the  doc- 
trine of  salvation,  and  that  nevertheless  the  purpose  of  our 
Lord  in  uttering  it  was  more  comprehensive  in  its  scope.  As 
the  Spirit  of  God  often  meant  more  by  a  prophecy  than  the 
prophet  was  aware  of,  so  Christ  might  mean  much  more  by  a 
parable  than  an  evangelist  was  aware  of.  In  this  sense  there 
is  truth  in  the  remark  of  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold,  that  Jesus  was 
over  the  head  of  His  reporters.  It  will  be  best,  therefore,  to 
lay  little  stress  either  on  the  external  connections  of  the  nar- 
rative or  on  the  supposed  private  thoughts  of  the  narrator, 
and  to  regard  this  parable  as  a  precious  fragment  which  Luke 

/  found  among  his  literary  materials,  "at  the  bottom  of  his 
portfolio,"  as  a  recent  commentator  expresses  it,2  and  which 

\heput  into  his  Gospel  at  a  convenient  place  that  it  might  not 
be  lost.  If  by  this  mode  of  viewing  it  we  lose  the  benefit  of 
a  guide  to  the  sense  in  the  context,  we  have  a  compensation 
in  the  reflection  made  by  the  same  commentator,  that  the 
very  fragmentariness  of  this  precious  morsel  is  a  guarantee  of 
its  originality  as  a  genuine  logion  of  Jesus.3 

What  then  is  the  doctrinal  drift  of  this  striking  fragment? 
On  the  surface  it  wears  a  harsh  and,  if  one  may  venture  to 

1  So  Hilgenfeld, '  Einleitung.'  *  Godet. 

8  Schleiermacher  tries  to  make  out  a  connection  between  vers.  5,  6,  and 
7 — 10.  He  thinks  it  was  quite  natural  that,  after  saying  that  faith  would 
enable  them  o  do  all  things  required  of  them,  Christ  should  go  on  to 
leach  that  they  were  not  to  expect  outward  stimuli  and  privileges  as  a 
reward.     '  Uber  die  Schriften  des  Lukas,'  p.  154. 


170  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,   [book  u 

say  so,  unChrist-like  aspect.  It  seems  to  give  a  legal,  heart- 
less, inhuman  representation  of  the  relations  between  God 
and  man,  and  of  the  nature  of  religion.  God  appears  as  an 
exacting  taskmaster  or  slave-driver,  who  requires  His  servants, 
already  jaded  with  a  full  day's  toil  in  the  fields,  to  render 
Him  extra  household  service  in  the  evening,  before  they  get 
the  food  and  rest  which  their  bodies  eagerly  crave.  And  the 
Master  is  ungracious  as  well  as  unmerciful.  He  doth  not 
thank  His  weary  slaves  for  their  extra  service  in  the  form  of 
attendance  at  table,  but  receives  it  as  a  matter  of  course. 
Then,  finally,  those  servants  are  required  to  submit  to  this 
merciless  and  ungracious  treatment  without  complaint  or 
surprise,-  as  quite  right  and  proper ;  nay,  they  must  even  go 
the  length  of  making  the  abject  acknowledgment  that  in  all 
their  toil,  day  and  night,  they  have  been  unprofitable  servants, 
and  at  most  have  done  no  more  than  their  statutory  duty. 
Now  we  may  be  sure  that  if  we  could  only  penetrate  to  the 
heart  of  our  Lord's  meaning,  we  should  find  it  to  be  thoroughly 
like  Himself,  and  thoroughly  consistent  with  His  other  teach- 
ing. It  is  indeed  a  strange,  hard  saying,  but  it  is  not  the 
only  hard  saying  which  fell  from  His  lips  ;  and  just  because 
it  is  so  strange  we  may  be  sure  it  really  was  spoken  by  Him  ; 
and  just  because  it  was  spoken  by  Him  we  may  be  sure  that, 
like  many  other  of  His  sayings,  with  a  very  hard  shell  on  the 
outside,  this  saying  has  within  the  shell  a  very  sweet  kernel. 
Let  us  try  to  break  the  shell  and  to  get  at  the  kernel 

Some  interpreters  of  note  have  sought  an  escape  from  the 
difficulties  of  the  parable  by  finding  in  it  not  a /ascription, 
but  a  description,  of  legal  religion.  We  are  told,  that  is,  not 
how  we  ought  to  serve  God,  but  how  men  of  a  legal  spirit, 
hirelings,  mercenaries,  such  as  the  Pharisaic  Jews,  do  serve 
God,  and  how  their  service  is  estimated  by  God.  The  parable 
is  in  fact  a  picture  of  the  kind  of  religion  which  Jesus  saw 
around  Him.  Religious  people  were  acting  like  men  hired  to 
do  a  certain  work,  in  return  for  which  they  were  to  receive 
their  meals.  They  did  their  'duty,'  the  things  expressly 
enjoined,  in  the  spirit  of  drudges  rather  than  in  the  generous 
spirit  of  devotion,  and  their  work  so  done  was  of  little  value, 
and  not  deserving  of  thanks  :  they  really  were  unprofitable 
servants.     And  such  men  are  pointed  at  as  persons  not  to  be 


ch.  vii.]       The  Parable  of  Extra  Service.  171 

imitated.     Jesus  says  in  effect,  "  Be  ye  not  like  these  ;  serve 
God  in  a  different  fashion,  and  ye  shall  receive  very  different 
treatment.     Men  of  servile,  mercenary  spirit  God  treats  as 
slaves ;  serve  God  liberally,  and  ye  shall  be  treated  as  sons." » 
On  this  view  the  parable  teaches  the  same  lesson  as  the  para- 
ble of  the  labourers  who  entered  the  vineyard  at  different 
hours  of  the  day,  in  which  those  who  entered  in  the  morning 
and  did  a  full  day's  work,  and  bore  "  the  burden  and  heat "  of 
the  day,  are  represented  as  being  paid  last,  and  without  any 
thanks ;  while  those  who  entered  at  the  eleventh  hour  are 
paid  first,  as  if  the  master  had  pleasure  in  paying  them,  and 
are  paid  as  much  as  those  who  had  worked  the  whole  day. 
Another  expedient  for  getting  out  of  the  difficulty,  proposed 
by  a  different  class  of  expositors,  is  to  suppose  that  the  para- 
ble teaches  not  how  God  does  deal  with  any  of  His  servants, 
but  how   He  might  deal  with   all.     He   might  treat  all  in 
justice  as  worthless  slaves  ;  but  that  He  does  not  we  know, 
not  indeed  from  this  parable,  but  from  other  places  of  Scrip- 
ture.    The  object  of  the  parable  is  not  to  set  forth  the  whole 
truth  about  God's  relations  to  men,  but  merely  to  negative 
the  idea  of  human  merit,  and  to  beat  down  human  pride.* 
Neither  of  these  interpretations  hits  the  mark.     The  one  errs 
in  assuming  that  the  parable  has  no  application  to  the  devoted 
servants  of  the  kingdom;    the  other  in  assuming  that  the 
parable  gives  us  no  information  as  to  how  God  does  deal  with 
men.   In  opposition  to  the  former,  we  believe  that  the  parable 
has  truth  for  all  servants  of  the  kingdom,  especially  for  the 
most  devoted  ;  and  in  opposition  to  the  latter,  we  believe  that 
it  teaches  not  how  God  might  act,  but  how  He  does  act  with 
His  servants ;  in  other  words,  that  it  shows  a  real  phase  of 
the  actual  experience  of  the  faithful  in  this  present  life.   They 
are  treated  in  providence  as  the  parable  represents.     Jesus 
spake  the  parable  to  the  twelve,  as  the  future  apostles  of 
Christianity,  to  let  them  know  beforehand  what  to  expect, 
and  so  to  prepare  them  for  their  arduous  task. 

We  believe  then  that  the  purpose  of  this  parable  is  neither 
by  implication  to  condemn  servile  religion,  nor  to  inculcate 
humility  for  its  own  sake  ;  but  to  set  forth  the  exacting 
character  of  the  demands  which  the  kingdom  of  God  makes 

»  So  Grotius.  ■  So  Trench,  controverting  the  view  of  Grotiiu. 


17a  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book.  i. 

on  its  servants,  and  to  inculcate  on  the  latter  humility  only 
that  the  work  of  the  kingdom  may  be  better  done,  and  may 
not  be  hindered  by  self-complacency.  We  take  the  extra 
service  of  the  slave  in  the  parabolic  representation  to  be  the 
key  to  the  interpretation,  and  assume  that  Christ  meant  to 
suggest  that  something  analogous  to  such  extra  service  will  be 
found  in  the  Divine  kingdom.  On  this  reasonable  assump- 
tion, the  direct  object  of  the  parable  will  be  to  teach  that  the 
service  of  God,  nay,  of  Christ  Himself,  is  a  very  exacting  and 
arduous  one ;  much  more  arduous  than  human  indolence 
cares  to  undertake  ;  far  exceeding  in  its  demands  the  ideal  of 
duty  men  are  prone  to  form  for  themselves.  Christ  would 
have  His  disciples  understand  that  the  Christian  vocation  is  a 
very  high  one  indeed  ;  that  for  those  who  give  themselves  to 
it,  it  not  merely  brings  hard  toil  in  the  fields  through  the  day, 
but  also,  so  to  speak,  extra  duties  in  the  evening,  when  the 
weary  labourer  would  fain  be  at  rest ;  that  it  has  no  fixed 
hours  of  labour,  eight,  ten,  twelve,  as  the  case  may  be 
according  to  agreement,  but  may  summon  to  work  at  any 
hour  of  all  the  twenty-four,  as  in  the  case  of  soldiers  in  time 
of  war,  or  of  farm  labourers  in  the  season  of  harvest,  when 
the  grain  must  be  secured  when  weather  is  propitious.  He 
would  have  His  disciples  lay  this  to  heart,  that  they  may  be 
on  their  guard  against  impatience  when  they  find,  in  the 
course  of  their  experience,  that  new  demands  of  service  are 
made  upon  them  beyond  what  already  seemed  a  fair  day's 
work ;  and  against  such  a  self-complacent  satisfaction  with 
past  performances,  however  considerable,  as  might  indispose 
them  for  further  exertion. 

Such  being  the  drift  of  the  parable,  there  is  of  course  no 
intention  revealed  in  it  to  represent  God  in  an  ungracious 
light.  Christ's  purpose  is  not  to  teach  in  what  spirit  God 
deals  with  His  servants,  but  to  teach  rather  in  what  spirit  we 
should  serve  God.  Doubtless  the  language  put  into  the  mas- 
ter's mouth  does  convey  the  impression  that  the  demand  for 
additional  service  arises  out  of  a  despot's  caprice  rather  than 
out  of  a  real  necessary  occasion.  But  any  one  acquainted 
with  our  Lord's  method  of  teaching  knows  how  to  interpret 
this  sort  of  language.  Christ  was  ever  very  bold  in  His  repre- 
sentation of  God's  apparent  character,  knowing  as  He  did 


CH.  m.  J       The  Parable  of  Extra  Service.  173 

that  God's  real  character  could  stand  it,  and  knowing  well 
also  what  a  hard  aspect  the  Divine  character  sometimes  wears 
to  our  view  As  in  the  parables  last  considered  He  drew 
pictures  of  a  selfish  neighbour  and  an  unjust  judge,  meaning 
these  to  represent  God  as  He  appears  to  His  people  when  He 
delays  answers  to  their  prayers ;  so  here  He  depicts  God  not 
according  to  the  gracious  reality  of  His  character,  but  accord- 
ing to  the  stern  facts  of  Christian  life.  As  on  other  occasions 
Jesus  spake  parables  to  teach  that  men  ought  always  to  pray 
and  not  faint,  showing  how  importunity  would  ultimately  pre- 
vail;  so  here  He  speaks  a  parable  to  teach  that  men  ought 
always  to  work  and  not  faint,  schooling  themselves  into  a 
spirit  of  severe  dutifulness  which  yields  not  readily  to  weari- 
ness, nor  is  prone  to  self-complacent  contentment  with  past 
attainments  and  performances,  seeing  that  such  a  spirit  is 
demanded  by  the  course  of  providence  from  all  who  serve  the 
Lord. 

The  doctrine  implied  in  our  parable,  that  the  kingdom  of 
God  makes  very  exacting  demands  on  its  servants,  is  not  one 
that  will  startle  any  one  familiar  with  our  Lord's  general 
teaching.  How  many  words  He  uttered  bearing  the  same 
import!  "Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God."  "Let  the 
dead  bury  their  dead,  but  go  thou  and  preach  the  kingdom  of 
God."  "  If  thou  wouldst  be  perfect,  go  and  sell  that  thou 
hast,  and  come  and  follow  Me."  "  He  that  loveth  father  or 
mother  more  than  Me  is  not  worthy  of  Me :  and  He  that 
loveth  son  or  daughter  more  than  Me  is  not  worthy  of  Me." 
These  are  hard  sayings ;  so  hard  that  we  are  strongly  tempted 
to  exercise  our  wits  in  polishing  off  their  sharp  angles,  in  dis- 
covering some  way  by  which,  without  setting  them  aside  as 
Utopian,  we  may  ease  their  pressure  on  the  conscience.  One 
way  of  doing  this  was  very  early  found  out.  It  was  to  con- 
vert those  sayings  of  Christ,  which  seem  to  require  renuncia- 
tion of  property  and  abstinence  from  domestic  ties,  into 
"counsels  of  perfection,"  as  distinguished  from  positive  com- 
mandments obligatory  on  all.  Let  all  who  would  be  perfect, 
who  would  take  honours,  so  to  speak,  in  the  Divine  kingdom, 
part  with  their  property  and  practise  celibacy.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  do  these  things  in  order  to  have  admission  into 
the  Divine  kingdom ;  but  those  may  do  so  who  choose,  and  if 


174  The  Parabolic    Teaching  of  Christ,    ([book  l 

they  do  it  will  be  put  to  their  credit.  As  for  the  common 
herd  of  Christians,  all  they  need  to  mind  is  the  keeping  of  the 
commandments  of  the  Decalogue  in  their  plain,  obvious  sense 
In  this  way  Christianity  was  made  easy  for  the  multitude,  and 
those  who  went  in  for  a  higher  style  of  piety  had  the  pleasure 
of  thinking  that  they  were  doing  more  than  was  commanded, 
and  were  therefore  very  far  indeed  from  being  unprofitable 
servants.  Voluntary  poverty  and  celibacy  were  the  extra 
service  after  the  day's  work  of  commonplace  morality  and 
religion  was  over,  and,  as  such,  received  a  higher  rate  of  pay- 
ment, in  the  form  of  praise  and  honour  in  earth  and  heaven. 

A  most  ingenious  and  plausible  theory,  but  not  true. 
Monkish  asceticism  is  not  the  extra  service  of  the  Christian 
life.  The  over-time  duty  consists  rather  in  extraordinary 
demands  on  God's  servants  in  exceptional  times  and  unusual 
emergencies ;  when  Christian  men,  already  weary,  must  con- 
tinue to  work  though  sentient  nature  demands  repose ;  when 
old  men,  who  have  already  served  God  for  many  years,  can- 
not enjoy  the  comparative  exemption  from  toil  which  their 
failing  powers  call  for,  but  must  toil  on  till  they  die  in  har- 
ness ;  when  liberal  men,  who  have  already  given  much  of  their 
substance  for  the  advancement  of  the  kingdom,  are  called  on 
to  give  still  more — it  may  be  to  give  their  all ;  when  young 
men  have  to  renounce  the  felicity  of  domestic  life  "  for  the 
kingdom  of  heaven's  sake,"  that  they  may  be  free  from  family 
cares  and  find  it  easier  to  bear  hardship  when  it  is  restricted 
to  their  own  person,  and  falls  not  upon  any  loved  ones.  In 
ordinary  circumstances  such  extra  service  may  not  be  called 
for.  The  servant  after  he  has  done  his  day's  work  may  at 
once  sit  down  to  meat  and  enjoy  rest ;  the  veteran  soldier 
may  retire  on  a  pension ;  the  man  of  wealth  may  retain  his 
means ;  the  young  man  may  marry.  But  when  the  emer- 
gency arises  which  calls  for  extra  service,  then  the  extra  service 
is  obligatory  on  all.  That  such  emergencies  do  arise  every 
one  knows.  Extreme  emergencies,  times  of  persecution,  for 
example,  are  rare ;  but  minor  emergencies  are  frequent ;  in 
fact,  it  may  be  said  that  to  every  Christian  there  come  oppor- 
tunities which  test  his  patience  and  his  obedience:  times 
when,  if  he  be  half-hearted,  cilf-indulgent,  or  self-complacent, 
he  will  say,  "  I  have  done  enough  ; "  but  when,  on  the  othef 


CH.  vii.]       The  Parable  of  Extra  Service.  1 75 

hand,  if  he  be  of  a  dutiful  mind,  he  will  say,  "  I  may  not  look 
on  the  things  which  are  behind,  or  speak  of  past  performances ; 
my  Master  bids  me  gird  myself  for  further  service,  and  I  must 
run  at  His  call." 

We  can  now  see  how  appropriate  is  this  parable  as  a 
representation  of  an  actual  experience  in  the  life  of  godliness. 
The  parable  is  true  at  once  to  natural  life  and  to  spiritual  life. 
In  societies  where  slavery  prevails  the  slave  is  treated  as  the 
parable  represents — as  one  who  has  no  rights,  and  who  there- 
fore, do  what  he  will,  can  be  no  profit  to  his  master,  and  can 
have  no  claim  to  thanks.  The  assertion  implied  in  the  phrase 
"  unprofitable  slaves,"  so  far  from  being  an  exaggeration,  is 
rather  a  truism.  The  emphasis  is  to  be  placed  on  the  word 
slaves :  they  are  unprofitable  because  slaves  ;  unprofitableness 
is  a  matter  of  course  in  a  slave.  And  as  slaves  deserve  no 
thanks,  they  receive  none ;  and  so  long  as  they  are  slaves  in 
spirit  it  is  best  they  should  not.  This  may  seem  a  harsh 
statement,  but  we  can  cite  a  curious  illustration  of  its  truth 
from  a  recent  book  of  African  travel.  The  writer,  giving 
some  of  his  experiences  in  connection  with  his  servants,  says, 
"  Afterwards  when  travelling  with  Arabs  I  found  that  we  had 
treated  our  men  with  too  much  consideration,  and  they  in 
consequence  tried  to  impose  on  us,  and  were  constantly 
grumbling  and  growling.  Our  loads  were  ten  pounds  lighter 
than  the  average  of  those  carried  for  the  Arab  traders.  And 
since  they  do  not  employ  askari  (soldiers,  servants,  donkey- 
drivers),  their  pagazi  (porters),  besides  carrying  loads,  pitch 
tents  and  build  screens  and  huts  required  for  the  women  and 
cooking,  so  that  they  are  frequently  two  or  three  hours  in 
camp  before  having  a  chance  of  looking  after  themselves. 
With  us  the  work  of  our  porters  was  finished  when  they 
reached  camp,  for  the  askari  pitched  our  tents,  and  the  task 
of  placing  beds  and  boxes  inside  was  left  to  our  servants  and 
gun-bearers."  x 

The  parable  may  be  transferred  to  the  spiritual  sphere  with 
one  important  exception.  It  is  not  needful  or  desirable  that 
the  servants  of  the  kingdom  be  treated  in  the  thankless  mannei 
in  which  Arab  traders  deal  with  their  slaves.  For  God's 
servants  are  not  slaves  in  spirit,  they  are  free  men,  and  theif 

*  Lieutenant  Cameron,  *  Across  Africa,'  voL  i.  pp.  107,  io8. 


176  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  i, 

service  springs  out  of  entirely  different  motives  from  those 
which  influence  slavish  natures. 

And  this  observation  leads  us  to  notice  the  temper  needful 
in  order  to  compliance  with  the  exact  demands  of  the  king- 
dom. Of  what  spirit  must  they  be  who  shall  prove  themselves 
capable  of  rising  to  the  heroic  pitch  when  called  on  ? 

Two  virtues  at  least  are  indispensable  for  this  purpose — 
patience  and  humility.  Patience,  lest  when  the  demand  for 
new  service  comes  we  be  unwilling  to  respond,  and  so  either 
refuse  the  service  or  do  it  in  a  grudging  humour ;  humility, 
lest  we  think  too  highly  of  what  we  have  already  done,  and 
so  be  ignobly  content  with  past  performances  and  attain- 
ments. Of  the  two  vices,  impatience  and  self-complacency, 
the  latter  is  the  more  to  be  feared.  There  is  doubtless  in  all 
a  tendency  to  grow  weary  in  well-doing ;  but  when  the  sense 
of  duty  is  strong  the  temptation  will  be  resisted.  The  word 
of  God  will  be  like  a  fire  in  the  bones,  and  will  make  it  impos- 
sible to  refrain  from  action.  But  the  spirit  of  self-complacency 
is  specially  to  be  feared  just  because  its  tendency  is  to  drug 
conscience,  deaden  the  sense  of  duty,  lower  the  very  ideal  of 
life,  and  make  us  think  we  have  done  exceeding  well  when  we 
have  done  very  indifferently.  There  is  no  enemy  to  all  high 
attainment  so  deadly  as  self-satisfaction.  On  the  other  hand, 
and  for  a  similar  reason,  there  is  nothing  more  favourable  to 
progress  than  a  humility  which  expresses  itself  thus :  "  We 
are  unprofitable  servants."  This  may  seem  servile  language, 
not  fit  to  be  used  by  a  spiritual  freeman,  however  humble. 
But  it  is  not  servile  language.  It  is  true  of  slaves  that  they 
are  unprofitable,  but  it  is  not  true  of  them  that  they  confess 
themselves  to  be  such,  except  it  may  be  by  way  of  a  mere 
/aeon  de  parler.  It  is  only  the  freeman  who  makes  such  a 
confession,  and  in  the  very  act  of  making  it  he  shows  himself 
to  be  free.  And  whence  springs  this  confession  of  the  free, 
self-devoted  spirit  ?  Is  it  out  of  an  abject  sense  of  personal 
demerit,  or  an  exaggerated  sense  of  Divine  majesty  ?  No, 
but  rather  out  of  a  sense  of  redemption.  It  is  a  deep  sense  of 
Divine  grace  which  makes  a  man  work  like  a  slave,  yet  think 
little  of  his  performance.  The  French  have  a  proverb  noblelse 
oblige,  which  means  that  rank  imposes  obligations ;  so  that  a 
true  noble  does  not  require  to  be  told  his  duty,  but  is  a  law 


ch.  vii.]       The  Parable  of  Extra  Service.  177 

unto  himself.  In  like  manner,  it  may  be  said  of  a  true  Chris- 
tian that  the  consciousness  of  redemption  obliges,  grateful 
love  constrains,  taxes  energies,  time,  possessions  very  heavily  ; 
has  the  greatest  possible  difficulty  in  satisfying  itself — in 
truth,  never  is  satisfied  ;  makes  one  work  like  a  slave,  refusing 
to  be  limited  by  hours  and  fixed  measures  and  proportions, 
and  yet  pronounces  on  all  actual  performances  the  verdict, 
'unprofitable/  'nothing  to  boast  of.'  And  thus  it  appears 
that  our  parable,  though  on  the  face  of  it  ignoring  or  even 
denying  the  gracious  character  of  God,  and  turning  Him  into 
a  slave-driver,  has  for  its  unseen  foundation  the  very  grace 
which  it  seems  to  deny.  Nothing  but  a  belief  in  Divine 
grace  can  make  it  possible  for  a  man  to  work  with  the  devo- 
tion and  the  temper  required  of  him  by  the  service  of  the 
kingdom.  A  legal  relation  between  God  and  man  never  could 
achieve  such  a  result,  never  could  make  a  man  in  spirit  and 
conduct  a  hero.  Legal  relation  can  make  men  unprofitable 
servants ;  but  it  cannot  make  them  supremely  profitable,  yet 
all  the  while  so  humble  that  they  can  honestly  think  and  call 
themselves  unprofitable.  That  moral  phenomenon  in  which 
the  extremes  of  devotion  and  modesty  meet  can  be  found 
only  where  God  is  conceived  of  as  a  God  of  love,  freely  giving, 
not  severely  exacting ;  in  the  lives  of  men  like  Paul  and 
Luther,  and  the  genuine  offspring  of  their  faith.  Said  we  not 
truly  at  the  commencement,  that  if  we  could  only  break  the 
shell  of  our  parable  we  should  find  it  contain  a  very  sweet 
kernel  ?  The  implied  doctrine  is  that  the  kingdom  is  a  king- 
dom of  grace,  and  that  devotion  is  the  cardinal  virtue  of  its 
"itizens ;  a  devotion  rendered  possible  by  the  grace  of  the 
kingdom,  and  necessary  by  its  imperial  tasks. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE    HOURS,    THE    TALENTS,    AND    THE    POUNDS  | 
OR,  WORK   AND  WAGES   IN   THE   KINGDOM   OF   GOD. 

THE  parable  of  Extra  Service  considered  in  the  last  chapter, 
when  superficially  viewed,  makes,  as  we  saw,  the  unpleasant 
impression  that  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  service  is  rendered 
to  a  thankless,  unappreciative  Master,  who  receives  all  work 
done  for  Him  as  a  matter  of  course,  possessing  no  merit,  and 
entitled  to  no  reward.  The  hastiest  glance  at  the  three  para- 
bles now  to  be  studied  suffices  to  show  that  this  impression  is 
a  very  false  one.  From  these  parables  we  learn  that  the 
kingdom  of  God  is  a  kingdom  of  perfect  equity;  that  the 
Lord  of  this  kingdom  is  one  who  knows  how  to  value  and 
repay  all  faithful,  devoted  labour,  and  in  all  His  dealings 
with  His  servants  approves  Himself  to  be  at  once  just  and 
generous  ;  and  that  in  this  kingdom  rewards  are  bestowed  on 
principles  which  commend  themselves  to  right  reason  as  in 
entire  accordance  with  the  eternal  laws  of  righteousness. 

All  three  parables  manifestly  relate  to  the  problem  of  Work 
and  Wages.  Their  common  theme  is  the  political  economy 
of  the  kingdom.  On  this  account  alone  they  might  fitly  be 
made  the  subject  of  one  connected  study.  But  we  have  a 
better  reason  than  this  for  taking  them  up  together  as  form- 
ing conjointly  a  single  topic.  The  parables  do  not  merely 
bear  upon  the  same  general  theme ;  they  are  mutually  com- 
plementary, and  constitute  together  a  complete  doctrine  on 
the  important  subject  of  work  and  wages  in  the  kingdom  of 
God.  To  see  this  we  have  but  to  remember  that  three  things 
must  be  taken  into  account  in  order  to  form  a  just  estimate 


ch.  viii.]   The  Hours,  the  Talents,  and  the  Pounds.  1 79 

of  the  ethical  value  of  men's  work :  viz.  the  quantity  of  work 
done,  the  ability  of  the  worker,  and  the  motive.  Where 
ability  is  equal,  quantity  determines  relative  merit ;  and 
where  ability  varies,  then  it  is  not  the  absolute  quantity  of 
work  done,  but  the  ratio  of  the  quantity  to  the  ability,  that 
ought  to  determine  value.  But  however  great  the  diligence 
and  zeal  displayed  or  the  amount  of  work  done  may  be,  no 
work  can  have  any  real  value  in  the  kingdom  of  God  which 
proceeds  from  an  impure  motive.  In  this  world  men  are  often 
commended  for  their  diligence  irrespective  of  their  motives, 
and  it  is  not  always  necessary  even  to  be  zealous  in  order  to 
gain  vulgar  applause.  If  one  does  something  that  looks  large 
and  liberal,  men  will  praise  him  without  inquiring  whether  for 
him  it  was  a  great  thing,  a  heroic  act  involving  self-sacrifice, 
or  only  a  respectable  act,  not  necessarily  indicative  of  earnest- 
ness or  devotion.  But  in  God's  sight  many  bulky  things  are 
very  little,  and  many  small  things  are  very  great ;  for  this 
reason,  that  He  seeth  the  heart  and  the  hidden  springs  of 
action  there,  and  judges  the  stream  by  the  fountain.  Quan- 
tity is  nothing  to  Him  unless  there  be  zeal,  and  even  zeal  is 
nothing  to  Him  unless  it  be  purged  from  all  vainglory  and 
self-seeking — a  pure  spring  of  good  impulses,  cleared  of  all 
smoke  of  carnal  passion  ;  a  pure  flame  of  heaven-born  devo- 
tion.    A  base  motive  vitiates  all. 

Each  of  the  three  parables  now  to  be  considered  gives  pro- 
minence to  a  distinct  element  in  this  complex  doctrine  of 
moral  value.  The  parable  of  the  Pounds  illustrates  the  pro- 
position that  where  ability  is  equal  quantity  determines  rela- 
tive merit.  In  this  parable  each  servant  receives  one  pound, 
but  the  quantity  of  work  done  varies ;  one  servant  with  the 
one  pound  gaining  ten,  while  another  gains  only  five.  In 
right  reason  the  rewards  ought  to  vary  accordingly,  and  so  in 
fact  they  do  in  the  parable.  The  first  gets  ten  cities  to  govern, 
the  second  only  five.  Not  only  so,  but,  what  is  more  remark- 
able, words  of  commendation  are  uttered  by  the  master  in 
addressing  the  first  servant  which  are  not  repeated  to  the 
second.  To  the  former  he  says,  "  Well,  thou  good  servant, 
because  thou  hast  been  faithful  in  a  very  little,  have  thou 
authority  over  ten  cities  ; "  to  the  second  no  praise  is  given, 
but  only  the  bare  commission,  "  Be  thou  also  over  five  cities." 


i8o  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  l 

The  parable  of  the  Talents,  on  the  other  hand,  illustrates  the 
proposition  that  when  ability  varies,  then  not  the  absolute 
quantity  of  work  done,  but  the  ratio  of  the  quantity  to  the 
ability,  ought  to  determine  value.  Here  the  amount  of  work 
done  varies  as  in  the  parable  of  the  Pounds,  but  the  ability 
varies  in  the  same  proportion,  so  that  the  ratio  between  the 
two  is  the  same  in  the  case  of  both  servants  who  put  their 
talents  to  use.  One  receives  five  and  gains  five,  the  other 
receives  two  and  gains  two.  In  right  reason  the  two  should 
be  held  equal  in  merit,  and  so  they  are  represented  in  the 
parable.  The  same  reward  is  given  to  each,  and  both  are 
commended  in  identical  terms  ;  the  master  saying  to  each  in 
turn,  "  Well  done,  good  and  faithful  servant ;  thou  hast  been 
faithful  over  a  few  things,  I  will  set  thee  over  many  things : 
enter  thou  into  the  joy  of  thy  Lord. " 

The  purpose  of  the  parable  of  the  Labourers  in  the  Vine- 
yard, or,  to  use  a  briefer  expression,  the  parable  of  the  Hours, 
is  to  emphasise  the  supreme  importance  of  motive  as  a  factor 
in  determining  moral  value.  It  teaches  in  effect  that  a  small 
quantity  of  work  done  in  a  right  spirit  is  of  greater  value  than 
a  great  quantity  done  in  a  wrong  spirit.  One  hour's  work 
done  by  men  who  make  no  bargain,  but  trust  to  the  generosity 
of  their  employer,  and  who  seek  by  ardent  devotion  to  make 
up  for  lost  time,  is  of  more  value  than  twelve  hours'  work 
done  by  men  who  regard  their  doings  with  self-complacency, 
and  who  have  laboured  all  along  as  hirelings.  That  this  is 
the  drift  of  the  parable  will  appear  more  clearly  hereafter; 
meantime  we  content  ourselves  with  briefly  stating  our 
opinion,  our  present  purpose  being  to  point  out  how,  on  the 
hypothesis  that  the  view  just  given  is  correct,  the  parable  of 
the  Hours  completes  the  doctrine  of  Christ  concerning  the 
relation  of  work  to  wages  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  by  setting 
forth  that  not  the  quantity  of  work  done  alone,  nor  even 
quantity  combined  with  zeal,  but  above  all  things  quality, 
pure  motive,  right  affection,  determines  moral  value. 

The  fact  just  pointed  out,  that  the  three  parables  before  us 
constitute  together  a  complete  doctrine  on  the  subject  of 
rewards,  suffices  to  settle  the  question  as  to  the  originality 
and  independence  of  these  parables ;  to  prove,  that  is,  that 
they  are  three  distinct  parables,  and  not  two.     The  question 


ch.  viii.  1   The  Hours,  the  Talents,  and  the  Pounds.   181 

concerns  the  parables  of  the  Talents  and  the  Pounds,  foi  the 
originality  and  distinctness  of  the  parable  of  the  Hours  is  not 
disputed.  It  is  held  by  many  interpreters  that  the  two  former 
parables  are  simply  different  versions  of  one  and  the  same 
parable,  opinion  being  divided  as  to  which  of  the  two  comes 
nearer  to  the  original  form  as  spoken  by  Jesus.  The  most 
plausible  view  is  that  of  those  who  maintain  that  Matthew's 
version  approaches  nearest  to  the  primitive  form,  and  that 
Luke's  parable  is  simply  Matthew's  transformed,  and  com- 
bined with  another  parable  about  a  king  and  his  subjects, 
which  was  spoken  at  a  different  time,  and  appears  in  Luke's 
narrative  only  in  a  mutilated  state.1  With  all  deference  to 
the  learned  commentators  who  treat  the  two  parables  as  one 
which  had  assumed  two  different  forms  in  the  course  of  tradi- 
tion, we  must  express  our  firm  belief  that  they  are  two,  spoken 
by  our  Lord  on  different  occasions  and  for  different  purposes. 
That  the  parables  are  very  similar  we  do  not  deny ;  we  will 
even  admit  that  they  are  simple  variations  on  the  same  theme. 
But  they  are,  in  our  judgment,  variations  originating  with  the 
Master  Himself,2  not  due  to  the  blunders  of  reporters,  or  to 
the  modifying  influence  of  inaccurate  tradition.  And  we  base 
this  judgment  on  the  remarkable  manner  in  which  the  three 
parables  as  they  stand  fit  into  each  other,  and  together  form 

1  This  is  the  view  of  Unger.  He  thinks  that  the  image  of  the  king  and 
his  subjects  does  not  agree  with  the  remaining  image,  either  in  itself 
(princeps  enim  bellum  gesturus,  et  negotiatores  porro,  hi  atque  urbium 
praefecturae,  minus  congruunt)  or  in  illustrating  the  matter  in  hand.  He 
makes  an  attempt  at  restoring  the  mutilated  parable  of  the  king  and  his 
subjects.  The  king  goes  to  a  distant  land,  to  return  afterwards  (Xafltlv 
fiumXiiay  he  thinks  belongs  only  to  the  story,  not  to  its  meaning).  He 
commits  his  kingdom  to  his  servants ;  to  one  more,  to  another  fewer 
cities.  The  citizens  rebel.  On  his  return  he  takes  account  of  his  vice- 
gerents, and  gives  them  power  accordingly. — '  De  Parabolarum  Jesu 
natura,'  p.  130.  Among  more  recent  writers  who  concur  in  this  view 
are  Strauss,  Bleek,  Ewald  (who  also  attempts  to  construct  the  lost 
parable  somewhat  differently  from  Unger),  and  Meyer,  and  to  a  certain 
extent  Reuss  in  'Histoire  Evangelique.'  Calvin  also  held  that  the 
parables  of  the  Pounds  and  the  Talents  are  essentially  one.  Matthew  he 
thinks  more  suo  inserts  this  parable  among  others,  neglecting  the  order  of 
time,  which  he  supposes  to  be  given  by  Luke. 

•  So  also  Schleiermacher,  who  regards  the  inequality  of  endowment  as 
an  essential  feature  of  the  one  parable,  and  equality  of  endowment  as  an 
equally  essential  feature  of  the  other. — *  Uber  die  Schriften  des  Lukas/ 


1 82  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  l 

a  complete  doctrinal  whole.  It  is  not  by  accident  or  blunder- 
ing that  variations  arise  which  fit  so  well  to  each  other  and 
to  the  didactic  significance  of  a  third  parable.  Such  fitness 
bears  witness  to  a  single  mind  in  which  the  three  parabolic 
representations  took  their  origin,  and  formed  together  a 
whole.  In  saying  this  we  but  apply  to  these  parables  the 
well-known  argument  of  design.  Even  as  the  theist  in  enforc- 
ing the  teleological  argument  maintains  that  by  the  adapta- 
tions of  the  different  parts  of  an  organism  to  each  other,  and 
of  the  whole  organism  to  its  environment,  he  is  constrained  to 
rise  above  the  action  of  chance  or  mere  mechanism  to  a 
designing  mind,  in  which  the  idea  of  this  organism  pre-existed, 
and  by  which  its  function  was  pre-determined;  so  we,  having 
regard  to  the  indubitable  fact  that  these  three  parables  as  we 
find  them  in  the  Gospel  records  do  form  as  it  were  an  organ- 
ism of  thought  on  the  subject  to  which  they  relate,  feel  con- 
strained to  conclude  that  they  owe  their  origin  not  to  the 
accidents  of  tradition,  but  simply  to  the  fact  that  they 
constituted  a  unity  in  the  mind  of  the  Great  Teacher, 
and  were  each  and  all  spoken  by  Himself  as  occasions 
occurred. 

While  maintaining  with  some  measure  of  confidence  that 
these  parables  form  a  didactic  whole,  and  on  that  ground 
asserting  their  originality,  we  do  not  therefore  feel  justified  in 
asserting  that  the  sole  design  of  the  Speaker  in  each  case  was 
simply  to  make  a  contribution  to  a  scientific  doctrine  on  the 
subject  of  work  and  wages  in  the  Divine  kingdom.  Had 
Christ  been  animated  by  a  purely  theoretic  interest,  He  might 
have  uttered  all  three  parables  at  one  gush,  as  all  bearing  on 
one  theme,  and  have  taken  care  so  to  construct  them  that 
they  should  all  be  strictly  confined  to  one  topic,  and  serve 
only  one  end.  But  such  was  not  His  way  as  a  teacher.  He 
was  never  guided  by  a  purely  theoretic  or  scientific  interest ; 
His  utterances,  however  capable  of  being  systematised,  were 
not  systematic  in  method,  but  occasional ;  and  the  motive  to 
speech  being  often  not  simple,  but  complex,  the  words  spoken 
frequently  served  more  than  one  purpose.  So  it  was  in  the 
case  of  these  parables.  They  were  in  all  probability  spoken 
at  different  times,  to  different  audiences,  and  from  mixed 
motiveS|  and  were  meant  to  teach  not  one  truth  only,  but 


ch.  viii.]  The  Hours.  183 

several;1  and  not  merely  to  teach,  but  to  warn,  admonish, 
comfort,  stimulate. 

Having  regard  to  these  facts,  we  will  not  pursue  what  might 
be  called  the  scientific  order  in  studying  our  parables,  which 
would  require  us  to  consider  first  the  parable  of  the  Talents, 
then  that  of  the  Pounds,  and  lastly  that  of  the  Hours  ;  setting 
forth  in  connection  with  the  first  the  function  of  ability  in 
determining  value,  in  connection  with  the  second  the  function 
of  diligence,  and  in  connection  with  the  third  the  function  of 
motive.  We  will  rather  take  them  up  in  the  order  in  which 
they  occur  in  the  evangelic  records,  which  may  with  some 
degree  of  probability  be  regarded  as  also  the  order  in  which 
they  were  delivered,2  beginning  with 

THE    LABOURERS    IN    THE    VINEYARD;    OR,   THE    SUPREME 
VALUE  OF  MOTIVE  IN   THE  DIVINE  KINGDOM. 

For  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  unto  a  man  that  was  an  kouseholdert 
who  went  out  early  in  the  morning  to  hire  labourers  into  his  vine- 
yard. And  when  he  had  agreed  with  the  labourers  for  a  denarius  a 
day,  he  sent  them  into  his  vineyard.  A  fid  going  out  about  the  third 
hour,  he  saw  others  standing  idle  in  the  market-place,  and  said  unto 
them ;  Go  ye  also  into  the  vineyard,  and  whatsoever  is  right  I  will 
give  unto  you.     And  they  went  their  way.     Again  going  out  about 

1  This  statement  applies  chiefly  to  the  parables  of  the  Talents  and  the 
Pounds. 

a  On  such  questions  it  is  unsafe  to  dogmatise,  but  there  seems  no  good 
reason  to  doubt  that  Matthew  gives  us  the  parable  of  the  Hours  in  its 
proper  historical  connection,  though  some  have  been  led  to  think  other- 
wise by  the  difficulty  of  finding  in  the  parable  an  illustration  of  the  saying, 
"Many  that  are  first  shall  be  last,  and  the  last  first"  (Neander,  Bleek, 
Reuss).  There  seems  also  good  reason  to  regard  the  other  two  parables, 
from  their  contents,  as  belonging  to  a  later  time ;  and  of  the  two, 
Matthew's  is  probably  the  earlier,  though  it  is  brought  in  by  him  at  a 
later  period.  This  is  the  opinion  of  Schleiermacher,  who  thinks  that  the 
parable  of  the  Talents  cannot  be  regarded  either  as  an  imperfect  under- 
standing of  that  of  the  Pounds,  or  as  a  remodelling  by  Christ  Himself  of 
the  latter  on  a  later  occasion.  The  contrary  he  thinks  the  more  natural. 
He  thinks,  further,  that  the  parable  in  Matthew  xxv.,  where  it  stands, 
does  not  suit  the  connection.  The  probability,  according  to  Schleier- 
macher, is  that  Christ,  on  an  unknown  occasion,  spoke  the  parable  of  the 
Talents,  in  which  unequal  endowment  was  an  essential  feature,  and  then 
took  it  up  again,  introducing  the  noteworthy  difference  of  equal  endow- 
ment.—' Uber  die  Schriften  des  Lukas.' 


184  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  t. 

the  sixth  and  the  ninth  hour,  he  did  likewise.  But  going  out  about 
the  eleventh  hour,  he  found  others  standing}  and  saith  to  them,  Why 
stand  ye  here  all  the  day  idle  t  They  say  unto  him,  Because  no  man 
hired  us.  He  saith  unto  them,  Go  ye  also  into  the  vineyard  (and 
whatsoever  is  right  that  shall  ye  receive)?  So  when  even  was  come, 
the  lord  of  the  vineyard  saith  unto  his  steward,  Call  the  labourers, 
and  give  them  their  hire,  beginning  from  the  last  unto  the  first.  And 
when  they  came  that  were  hired  about  the  eleventh  hour,  they  received 
each  a  denarius.  But  when  the  first  came,  they  supposed  that  they 
would  recewe  more;  and  they  likewise  received  each  a  denarius. 
And  having  received  it,  they  murmured  against  the  goodman  of  the 
house,  saying,  These  last  wrought  but  one  hour,  and  thou  hast  made 
them  equal  unto  us,  who  have  borne  the  burden  of  the  day  and  the 
heat.  But  he  answered  one  of  them,  and  said,  Friend,  I  wrong  thee 
not:  didst  not  thou  agree  with  me  for  a  denarius  t  Take  up  thine,3 
and  go.  It  is  my  pleasure  to  give  to  this  last  even  as  to  thee.  Is  it 
not  lawful  to  do  what  I  will  with  mine  own  t  Or  is  thine  eyt  evil, 
because  I  am  good?  So  the  last  shall  be  first,  and  the  first  last  [for 
many  be  called,  but  few  chosen). — Matt.  xx.  I — 16. 

The 'for'  with  which  the  parable  is  introduced  connects  it 
with  the  saying  with  which  the  previous  chapter  concludes, 
and  plainly  implies  that  the  parable  is,  in  the  view  of  the 
evangelist  at  least,  an  illustration  of  that  saying.  This  con- 
nection supplies  us  with  a  clue  to  the  interpretation  of  the 
parable  whereof  we  stand  much  in  need  ;  for  in  truth  the 
parabolic  explanation  of  the  saying  immediately  preceding  is 
harder  to  understand  than  the  saying  itself.  Apart  from  the 
parable,  there  would  probably  have  been  a  tolerable  amount 
of  agreement  as  to  the  meaning  of  the  moral  apophthegm. 
The  idea  it  naturally  suggests  is  that  of  a  change  of  places 
between  those  who  in  a  certain  respect  are  first,  and  those  who 
in  the  same  respect  are  last.  The  first  in  one  respect  become 
last  in  another,  the  last  taking  their  place  and  becoming  first. 
The  respect  in  which  the  reversal  of  position  takes  place  is 
sufficiently  clear  from  the  connection  in  which  the  saying  was 
spoken  by  Jesus.  Peter  had  asked  the  question,  Behold,  we 
have  forsaken  all,  and  followed  Thee;  what  shall  we  have 

1  The  best  MSS.  omit  hpyovc  here. 

•  A  doubtful  reading,  omitted  in  R.  V.  and  by  Westcott  and  Hort. 

•  ipov  rb  abv.  The  verb  implies  either  that  the  money  had  been  laid 
down  by  the  steward  to  be  taken  up  by  the  labourers,  or  that  it  had  been 
thrown  down  by  the  latter  in  disgust.  The  former  is  the  view  of  Morrison, 
the  latter  of  Greswell. 


ch.  viii.]  The  Hours.  185 

therefore  ?  and  had  received  a  very  inspiring  answer  to  the 
substance  of  his  question,  to  this  effect:  They  who  make 
sacrifices  for  Me  and  My  cause  shall  receive  an  hundred-fold 
of  the  things  renounced,  and  in  the  world  to  come  eternal  life. 
But  the  spirit  of  Peter's  question  required  an  answer  too.  It 
was  a  spirit  of  self-consciousness,  self-complacency,  and  bar- 
gain-making, and  a  faithful  master  could  not  allow  such  a 
spirit  to  appear  in  his  disciples  without  a  warning  word.  The 
warning  word  is  to  be  found  in  the  saying  which  forms  the 
motto  of  our  parable.  "  But,"  said  Jesus,  as  if  with  upraised 
finger,  and  in  a  grave,  monitory  tone,  "  many  that  are  first 
shall  be  last,  and  the  last  shall  be  first;"  manifestly  meaning 
to  hint,  Think  not  that  the  mere  fact  of  having  made  a  sacri- 
fice, or  even  a  great  sacrifice,  for  the  kingdom  necessarily 
insures  the  great  reward  I  have  spoken  of :  all  depends  on  the 
spirit  in  which  sacrifices  are  made  ;  and  it  is  possible  for  one 
who  is  first  as  to  the  extent  of  his  sacrifice  to  be  last  in  the 
esteem  of  God  and  in  the  amount  of  reward,  because  his  sacri 
fice  is  vitiated  by  the  indulgence  of  a  mercenary,  self-righteous, 
self-complacent  temper.  A  small  sacrifice  made  in  a  right,  i.  e. 
a  humble,  self-forgetful,  devoted  spirit,  is  of  more  value  in 
God's  sight  than  a  great  sacrifice  made  in  such  a  spirit  as 
seems  to  have  prompted  your  question. 

Such  is  the  meaning  which  one  naturally  puts  upon  the 
moral  saying  with  which  the  nineteenth  chapter  of  Matthew's 
Gospel  closes,  viewing  it  in  connection  with  all  that  goes 
before.  But  when  the  reader  passes  on  to  the  parable  in  the 
next  chapter,  which  seems  designed  to  illustrate  that  saying, 
he  is  tempted  to  doubt  the  correctness  of  his  first  impression. 
For  what  he  finds  on  the  surface  of  the  parable  is  not  a  change 
-■r  places,  but  an  abolition  of  distinctions  by  putting  all  on 
one  level ;  not  first  ones  in  one  respect  becoming  last  in 
another,  and  last  ones  in  the  former  respect  becoming  first  in 
the  latter,  but  first  and  last  in  respect  of  length  of  service 
becoming  equal  in  respect  of  pay.  This,  we  say,  is  what  one 
finds  on  the  surface;  and  the  superficial  aspect  has  misled 
many  interpreters  into  the  opinion  that  the  design  of  the 
parable  is  to  teach  the  doctrine  that  in  the  kingdom  of  God 
all  shall  be  rewarded  alike.1     But  if  that  be  indeed  its  design, 

1  So  most  recently  Reuss  in  '  Histoire  Evangelique.'     He  thinks  the 


1 86  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book.  i. 

then  one  of  two  things  must  follow.  Either  the  parable  as 
originally  spoken  by  Christ  stood  in  no  connection  with  the 
proverbial  saying  in  question,  or  that  saying  must  be  made 
to  bear  a  different  meaning  from  that  which  it  naturally  sug- 
gests. Not  a  few  interpreters  have  felt  themselves  shut  up 
to  the  adoption  of  one  or  other  of  these  alternatives ;  those 
who  adopt  the  latter  putting  upon  the  gnome  this  sense:  the 
first  shall  be  as  the  last,  and  the  last  shall  be  as  the  first ; 
that  is,  first  and  last  shall  be  alike,  all  distinctions  of  first  and 
last  shall  disappear.1 

Either  of  these  courses  appears  to  us  violent,  and  not  to  be 
followed  except  under  direst  compulsion.  For  our  own  part, 
we  much  prefer  trying  to  bring  the  parable  into  conformity 
with  the  gnome  as  naturally  understood,  than  to  force  upon 
the  gnome  a  meaning  which  shall  bring  it  into  accord  with 
the  supposed  didactic  import  of  the  parable.  For  of  the  two 
things,  the  import  of  the  parable  and  the  import  of  the  pro- 
verb, the  latter  seems  to  us  much  the  clearer.  There  is  little 
room  for  doubt  that  the  proverb  points  not  at  a  levelling  of 
distinctions,  but  at  an  exchange  of  places.  Several  consider- 
ations might  be  adduced  in  support  of  this  position.  In  the 
first  place,  the  word  many  is  in  its  favour.  "  Many  that  are 
first  shall  be  last."  Why  not  all,  if  the  purpose  of  the  pro- 
verb be  to  teach  the  general  truth  that  in  God's  sight  the  dis- 
tinctions between  men  vanish  into  nothing  ?  Does  the  term 
many  not  suggest  the  thought  that  what  actually  happens  too 
often  is  what  ought  not  to  be ;  that  it  is  a  departure  from  the 
normal  and  desirable  state  of  things  due  to  the  action  of  some 
disturbing  cause ;  that  if  all  things  were  as  they  ought  to  be, 
the  first  in  respect  of  sacrifice  would  also  be  first  in  respect  of 
reward ;  that  in  'act  there  is  no  law  in  the  Divine  kingdom 
that  all  must  share  alike?  Then,  secondly,  it  is  only  when 
thus  understood  that  the  saying  has  any  relevancy  to  the 
question  of  Peter.     The  words  are  a  pointless  commonplace 

parable  is  not  in  its  true  place  or  setting,  and  that  it  is  designed  to  teach 
the  equality  of  Divine  grace  in  face  of  the  inequality  of  the  human 
condition  in  respect  of  the  gospel  promises — diversity  in  hours  of  labour, 
but  above  all  in  the  fact  of  a  covenant  in  the  case  of  one  of  the  parties 
(the  Jews). 

1  So  Unger  :  per  se  probabiliter  explicantur :  postrenal  atque  primi  pari 
loco  erunt.     Meyer  takes  the  same  view. 


ch.  viii.]  The  Hours.  1^7 

in  the  connection  in  which  they  stand  if  they  signify,  all  shall 
be  alike  in  respect  of  the  reward  ;  not  to  say  that  they  are  in 
manifest  contradiction  to  the  terms  of  the  foregoing  promise : 
for  these  are  "  shall  receive  an  hundred-fold,"  an  expression 
implying  a  proportion  between  the  reward  and  the  sacrifice. 
So  manifest  is  the  incongruity,  that  a  recent  commentator, 
who  understands  the  saying  when  it  recurs  at  the  close  of  the 
parable  as  teaching  the  doctrine  of  equality,  finds  it  necessary 
to  invent  a  meaning  for  it  in  its  first  position  different  from 
either  of  those  already  indicated,  to  the  following  effect: 
Many  who  are  first  (in  a  worldly  point  of  view)  because  they 
have  not  forsaken  their  goods,  will  be  last  when  they  lose 
salvation  in  Messiah's  kingdom  ;  while  such  as  through  sacri- 
fice of  all  have  become  last  (in  a  worldly  point  of  view),  will 
be  first  because  they  attain  unto  the  highest  salvation.1  That 
this  is  not  the  sense  of  the  saying  is  proved  by  the  simple 
fact  that  it  is  not  introduced  by  a  '  for '  (yap),  as  a  reflection 
confirmatory  of  the  foregoing  statement,  but  by  a 'but'  (8e), 
as  a  thought  looking  in  a  different  direction,  and  qualifying 
the  promise  going  before.  The  interpretation  is  interesting 
and  valuable  simply  as  showing  what  shifts  men  are  driven  to 
who,  despairing  of  bringing  the  proverb  into  harmony  with 
the  parable  following,  desire  at  least  to  adjust  it  in  some  not 
quite  intolerable  manner  to  the  conversation  going  before. 
Once  more,  in  interpreting  this  striking  saying  we  are  entitled 
to  attach  some  weight  to  the  general  ethical  teaching  of  Scrip- 
ture. Now  one  great  thought  we  find  running  through  Holy 
Writ,  viz.  that  God  giveth  grace  to  the  lowly,  and  knoweth 
the  proud  afar  off;  a  truth  of  which  we  find  many  echoes  in 
the  teaching  of  Christ  Himself,  as  in  that  word  which  closes 
the  parable  of  the  Pharisee  and  the  Publican :  "  Every  one 
that  exalteth  himself  shall  be  abased ;  and  he  that  humbleth 
himself  shall  be  exalted."  a  Here  is  taught  just  such  a  change 
of  places  as  on  first  thought  we  found  in  the  saying  now  under 
consideration ;  and  our  second  and  final  thought  concerning 
that  saying  is  that  our  first  impression  was  right,  and  that  in 
it  we  ought  to  find  a  moral  reflection  kindred  to  that  illus- 
trated by  the  parable  of  the  Pharisee  and  the  Publican,  and 

1  Weiss,  '  Das  Matthaus-Evangelium,'  p.  441. 
*  Luke  xviii.  14. 


1 88  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  u 

in  sympathy  with  that  vein  of  moral  doctrine  which  more  than 
all  other  doctrines  pervades  the  Scriptures,  to  the  effect  that 
God's  favour  is  in  proportion  to  man's  humility. 

We  regard  it  as  a  settled  point  then,  that  what  the  apoph- 
thegm points  to  is  not  a  levelling  of  distinctions,  but  an 
exchange  of  places,  by  which  the  first  in  the  amount  of  service 
and  sacrifice  becomes,  through  pride,  or  vainglory,  or  self- 
seeking,  last  in  the  esteem  of  God  ;  and  what  we  have  now  to 
do  is  to  ascertain  by  careful  examination  whether  the  parable 
cannot  be  brought  into  harmony  with  the  saying  thus  under- 
stood, so  as  to  serve  as  an  illustration  of  the  doctrine  that 
quality,  not  quantity,  determines  the  value  of  work  in  the 
Divine  kingdom. 

i.  First  we  must  fix  our  attention  very  closely  on  the 
householder ;  as  we  may  find  that  to  understand  him  is  the 
nearest  way  to  an  understanding  of  the  parable.  This  man  is 
no  ordinary  employer  of  labour ;  by  no  means  the  first  man 
of  the  kind  you  happen  to  meet.  Before  the  kingdom  ot 
heaven  can  be  likened  to  a  man  who  possesses  a  vineyard,  the 
man  has  to  be  assimilated  to  the  kingdom  ;  and  the  man  in 
the  parable  has  actually  been  so  assimilated.  Such  men  as 
he  may  possibly  be  found  among  this  world's  employers  of 
labour,  but  they  are  rare ;  men  like  the  gifted  author  of  a 
charming  tractate  on  political  economy,  which  takes  its  title 
from  a  sentence  in  our  parable,  and  which  has  for  its  burthen 
that  in  the  business  relations  of  men  you  cannot  without  fatal 
results  ignore  the  social  affections,  and  for  its  unconscious 
scope  to  turn  the  commercial  world  into  a  kingdom  of  God.1 
Our  householder  is  not  of  this  world,  any  more  than  Plato's 
republic,  nor  are  his  ways  the  ways  of  the  world,  or  likely  to 
be  approved  by  the  world,  but  rather  certain  to  be  found  fault 
with ;  as  in  point  of  fact  they  are  represented  as  having  been 
found  fault  with  by  the  parties  who  were  most  closely  related 
to  him,  who  doubtless  thought  they  did  well  to  be  angry. 
Were  such  a  man  to  appear  among  us,  he  would  probably 
give  similar  offence  to  parties  similarly  related  ;  and  to  the 
outside  world  he  would,  in  all  likelihood,  appear  an  eccentric 
humorist,  to  be  laughed  at  rather  than  to  be  imitated.  And 
this  judgment  would  not  be  very  much  to  be  wondered  at 

1  *  Unto  This  Last,'  by  John  Ruskin. 


ch.  viii.]  The  Hours.  189 

For  in  truth  our  householder  is  a  humorist,  and  his  ways  are 
in  some  respects  very  peculiar.  Two  peculiarities  especially 
are  notable  in  his  character.  One  is,  that  besides  hiring  men 
in  the  ordinary  way,  and  at  the  ordinary  time,  to  work  in  his 
vineyard,  he  now  and  then  takes  it  into  his  head  to  go  at  an 
advanced  time  of  the  day  in  search  of  labourers,  from  benevo- 
lent motives;  not  for  his  own  advantage,  but  for  the  advantage 
of  those  who  have  the  misfortune  to  be  unemployed.  For 
what  other  motive  could  move  any  one  to  go  to  the  market- 
place at  the  eleventh  hour,  when  the  working  portion  of  the 
day  was  about  to  close  ?  What  evidence  is  there  that  in  this 
procedure  our  householder  followed  ordinary  usage  ?  Com- 
mentators have  been  able  to  cite  from  books  of  Eastern  travel 
passages  proving  that  the  parabolic  picture  of  an  employer  of 
labour  going  out  in  the  morning  to  hire  labourers,  is  in  accord- 
ance with  Oriental  custom.1  But  we  have  not  met  anywhere 
with  anything  tending  to  prove  that  the  quest  of  workers  at 
the  close  of  the  day  is  in  accordance  with  the  customs  of  any 
part  of  the  world.  The  learned  Lightfoot  indeed  quotes  cer- 
tain phrases  from  the  Talmud  which  he  thinks  may  tend  to 
throw  some  light  on  this  feature  in  the  parable.  The  Tal- 
mudists  distinguish  between  persons  hired  for  the  day,  and 
persons  hired  for  so  many  hours,2  and  they  direct  hirers  of 
labour  to  note  whether  those  to  be  hired  come  from  various 
places ;  for,  say  they,  there  are  places  where  people  come 
earlier  to  work,  and  other  places  where  they  come  later.8 
The  author  of  the  '  Horae  Hebraicae '  suggests  that  the  fact 
referred  to  in  this  last  observation  may  serve  to  explain  how 
there  came  to  be  persons  in  the  market-place  to  be  hired  at 
such  different  times  of  the  day.  But  in  any  case,  the  fact 
stated  cannot  explain  the  hiring  of  workers  at  the  eleventh 
hour,  for  it  is  not  credible  that  it  was  the  custom  of  any  place 
to  begin  work  at  so  late  an  hour ;  and  besides,  both  the  ques- 
tion of  the  master  addressed  to  those  then  hired,  and  their 
reply,  imply  that  they  had  been  present  in  the  market-place 

1  Trench  quotes  '  Morier's  Travels  in  Persia'  to  this  effect,  p.   177, 
Aote. 

2  Distinguunt  canones  Hebraeorum  de  conducendis  operariis,   prout 
ratio  postulat,  inter  conductos  in  diem,  et  conductos  in  horas  quasdam. 

8  Observandum  an  veniant  ex  locis  variis ;  sunt  enim  loca  ubi  citius  ad 
opus  pergitur,  et  sunt  ubi  seriut. 


190  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ     [book  i. 

all  the  day,  ready  to  work  for  any  one  who  engaged  them. 
The  compassionate  tone  of  the  master's  question  suggests  the 
true  explanation  of  his  conduct.  Not  custom,  and  not  need 
of  more  labourers,  but  pity  for  the  idle  moved  this  eccentric 
landlord  to  go  at  the  eleventh  hour  in  search  of  new  labourers.1 
The  very  manner  in  which  this  part  of  the  narrative  is  intro- 
duced, reveals  a  purpose  on  the  part  of  the  Speaker  to  signalise 
the  action  of  the  master  as  something  peculiar  and  exceptional, 
indicative  of  a  moral  characteristic  deserving  attention.  The 
sentence  begins  with  the  adversative  particle  (8e),  as  if  to  say, 
Note  especially  what  follows,  and  consider  well  what  it  imports 
as  to  the  character  of  the  chief  actor. 

The  other  peculiarity  of  our  householder  is  that  he  seems 
to  attach  importance  not  so  much  to  the  work  done  as  to  the 
spirit  in  which  it  is  done.  He  delights  in  the  spirit  of  grate- 
ful devotion,  and  he  abhors  with  equal  intensity  the  spirit  of 
envious,  selfish  calculation.  The  parable  supplies  evidence  of 
this  assertion.  The  master's  abhorrence  of  the  mercenary 
spirit  comes  out  very  clearly  in  his  reply  to  the  murmuring  of 
those  first  hired,  in  which  every  word  breathes  indignation  and 
disgust.  But  not  less  truly,  though  less  obviously,  does  the 
narrative  reveal  the  action  of  an  opposite  feeling  of  delight  in 
the  spirit  of  uncalculating  devotion.  For,  to  this  feeling  in 
the  breast  of  the  employer  we  must  ascribe  the  fact  of  his 
paying  the  last  hired  first,  and  also  the  fact  of  his  paying  them 
a  full  day's  wage.  The  commentators  indeed  endeavour  to 
rob  both  facts  of  all  moral  significance.  As  to  the  former,  one 
commentator  tells  us  that  the  expression,  "  beginning  from 
the  last  unto  the  first,"  signifies :  No  order  being  observed 
among  them,  but  so  that  no  one  may  be  omitted.2  Others 
assure  us  that  the  sole  reason  why  the  last  are  paid  first,  is 
that  the  first  hired  might  observe  what  was  done,  and  have 
their  expectations  awakened.3  But  they  forget  that  the 
motive  leading  the  Speaker  of  the  parable  to  tell  His  story  in 
a  certain  way  is  one  thing,  and  the  motive  of  the  actor  in  the 

1  So  Olshausen,  with  his  usual  insight :  *  Less  out  ot  need  than  out  of 
pity  for  the  idle,  did  the  true  Hausherr  from  time  to  time  call  new 
labourers  into  his  vineyard."  Similarly  Goebel  says  :  u  An  unusual  pro- 
ceeding, which  shows  that  the  master  is  concerned  not  merely  about  the 
amount  of  work,  but  about  employing  as  many  as  possible." 
8  Grotius.  *  So  Calvin  and  Bleek. 


ch.  viii.]  The  Hours.  191 

parable  is  another.  It  may  be  that  the  Speaker's  reason  for 
telling  the  story  as  He  does  is,  that  He  may  be  able  to  ex- 
hibit a  certain  class  of  workers  behaving  in  a  particular  way. 
But  the  landlord  must  be  conceived  to  act  from  a  motive  of 
his  own,  all  unconscious  of  the  use  that  is  to  be  made  of  his 
action  to  point  a  moral.  And  what  could  his  motive  be  but 
a  desire  to  manifest  special  interest  in  those  who,  having  come 
into  the  vineyard  at  the  close  of  the  day,  must  have  cherished 
very  humble  expectations  as  to  what  they  were  to  receive, 
although  they  had  done  their  best  during  their  one  hour  of 
work  to  show  their  grateful  appreciation  of  the  master's  kind- 
ness ? x  And  if  this  was  indeed  his  motive,  then  the  action 
was  not  so  insignificant  as  some  would  have  us  believe.  In 
itself,  to  be  paid  first  was  a  small  advantage  to  the  last  hired  ; 
too  small  to  bear  the  chief  stress  in  the  illustration  of  the 
principle :  the  last  first,  and  the  first  last.  But  the  paying  of 
the  last  first  was  a  very  significant  circumstance  as  an  index  of 
iJie  master's  mind,  for  in  that  connection  we  have  to  consider 
not  merely  the  action  itself,  but  what  it  may  lead  to. 

The  significance  of  the  other  fact  above  alluded  to,  the  pay- 
ing of  the  last  hired  a  full  day's  wage,  cannot  well  be  denied ; 
yet  here  too  some  commentators  seem  bent  on  making  the 
householder's  action  appear  as  commonplace  as  possible. 
Greswell,  for  example,  adduces  from  Josephus,  doubtless  as 
the  result  of  much  learned  research,  what  he  regards  as  an 
instance  of  similar  payment  made  to  the  builders  of  the  temple 
by  King  Herod.  The  words  of  the  Jewish  historian  are  to 
the  effect :  If  any  one  worked  one  hour  of  the  day,  he  received 
straightway  the  reward  of  this  ;  which  our  commentator  inter- 
prets to  mean  that  he  was  paid  a  whole  day's  wage  for  one 
hour's  work.2    There  is  reason  to  believe  that  he  has  made  a 

1  Morrison  refers  to  Lofler,  author  of  a  monograph  on  this  parable, 
published  in  the  early  part  of  last  century,  as  suggesting  that  the  words  ol 
the  murmurers  concerning  the  last  hired,  ow-o*  ol  £<rxaTOi  Plav  ^Pav  iToiqaav, 
are  meant  to  convey  the  idea  that  their  work  was  not  worthy  to  be  called 
work,  but  was  a  mere  consumption  of  a  little  time.  This  is  not  probable, 
as  the  verb  was  quite  commonly  used  to  denote  working  for  so  long.  But 
in  any  case,  the  bitter  remark  of  envious  fellow-workers  cannot  be  taken 
as  a  reliable  statement  of  fact. 

■  The  passage  cited  is  from  '  Antiq.  Jud.,'  xx.  ix.  7,  and  is  as  follows  :— 
tal  yip  tl  fiiav  r«C  £>pav  rtfQ  ruiipaQ  ilpydoaro,  rov  fiioQov  iirtp  ravrqc  iii9ent% 


igi  The  Parabolic    Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  1. 

mistake  in  rendering  the  Greek,  and  his  mistake  is  due  not  to 
any  want  of  scholarship,  but  to  a  perverse  desire  to  bring  the 
action  of  the  owner  of  the  vineyard  into  harmony  with  ordinary 
practice.     An  instance  must  be  found  of  similar  conduct,  and 
the  needful  example  is  discovered  in  the  most  unlikely  quar- 
ter.    Who  can  believe  that  Herod  would  act  so  generously 
towards  the  builders  of  his  temple  ;  and  what  rational  being, 
however  generous,  would  make  a  habit  of  paying  one  hour's 
work  with  a  whole  day's  wage  ;  a  habit  which,  as  Alford 
well  remarks,  could  only  have  the  result  of  preventing  work 
from  being  done  ?     What  egregious  errors  learned  and  ingeni- 
ous men  fall  into  when  they  miss  the  track  of  true  interpret- 
ation !     That  track,  in  the  present  instance,  does  not  lead  in 
the  direction  of  making  our  householder  as  like  other  people 
as  possible,  but  rather  in  the  direction  of  recognising  boldly 
and  decidedly  his  peculiarity  and  originality,  or,  if  you  will, 
his  eccentricity.     He  chooses  for  a  reason  of  his  own  to  pay 
one  hour's  work  with  a  whole  day's  wage.     And  what  is  hi» 
reason  ?     It  is  not  benevolence,  at  least  not  exclusively ;  for 
he  does  not  seem  to  have  intended  it  at  first,  for  when  he 
engaged  those  who  entered  the  vineyard  at  the  eleventh  hour, 
he  said  to  them,  as  to  the  others,  "  Whatsoever  is  right,  that 
shall  ye  receive."     The  reading  here,  it  is  true,  is  doubtful ; 
but  the  omission  of  the  words  may  be  due  to  a  desire  to 
remove  an  apparent  incongruity  between  the  terms  of  engage- 
ment and  the  actual  payment  made  at  the  end  of  the  day. 
And  even  if,  in  deference  to  the  canons  of  criticism  laid  down 
by  the  highest  authorities,  we  regard  the  clause  as  an  expan- 
sion by  copyists,  we  may  assume  that  it  expresses  correctly  ths 
understanding  on  which  the  late-hired  workers  were  allowed 
to  enter  the  vineyard.     The  master  seems  to  have  decided  to 
pay  the  last  a  whole  day's  wage  after  seeing  them  at  work. 
The  heartiness  of  their  endeavours  pleased  him  much,  and  he 
was  in  the  mood  to  bestow  on  them  an  amount  of  pay  out  of 
all  proportion  to  the  amount  of  work  done,  paying  them  not 
so  much  for  their  work  as  for  their  good  will. 

"  An  eccentric  man,  most  unlike  other  people,  and  by  no 
means  to  be  imitated  1 "     Yes ;  but  how  like  is  this  man,  with 

iXa'pjSavtv.     Gre swell  thinks  that  the  use  of  I  /ii<T0ic  absolutely  requires  it 
to  be  understood  of  the  wages  of  a  day. 


cH.  viii.]  The  Hours.  193 

his  strange  humours,  to  the  Divine  Being  as  depicted  by  the 
sweet  singer  of  Israel :  "  With  the  merciful  Thou  wilt  show 
Thyself  merciful ;  with  an  upright  man  Thou  wilt  show  Thy- 
self upright ;  with  the  pure  Thou  wilt  show  Thyself  pure ; 
and  with  the  froward  Thou  wilt  show  Thyself  froward.  For 
Thou  wilt  save  the  afflicted  people ;  but  wilt  bring  down  high 
looks."  l  How  true  to  this  poetic  picture  of  God  is  the  char- 
acter of  our  householder  in  the  parable !  He,  too,  is  froward 
with  the  froward.  How  sharp  and  curt  his  words  to  the 
grumbling  churls.  "  Friend,  I  wrong  thee  not :  didst  thou 
not  agree  with  me  for  a  penny  ?  Lift  thine,  and  go ; "  the 
last  words  accompanied,  we  may  imagine,  with  an  imperative 
wave  of  the  hand.  Then  how  good  he  is  to  the  meek,  the 
afflicted  people  who  had  hung  about  all  day  in  the  market- 
place till  they  had  become  utterly  disheartened  because  no 
man  had  hired  them,  and  who  work  during  the  last  hour  like 
men  mad  with  joy!  His  conduct  towards  them  well  entitles 
him  to  apply  to  himself  the  august  title  ayados*  For  whereas 
he  had  promised  at  first  merely  to  do  what  was  just  (biKaiov), 
or  at  least  abstained  from  giving  any  hint  of  a  purpose  to  do 
more,  he  far  exceeds  the  limits  of  justice,  and  rises  to  the  level 
of  heroic  benignancy  and  magnanimity. 

Such  then,  according  to  our  reading  of  his  character,  were 
the  characteristics  of  the  householder  in  our  parable ;  charac- 
teristics not  only  admirable,  but  useful,  if  the  possessor's  chief 
aim  in  life  were  the  culture  of  right  affections  in  those  about 
him.  For  benevolence  tends  to  produce  in  its  objects  grati- 
tude, and  grateful  devotion  generously  rewarded  rises  to  still 
higher  heights  of  devotion.  But  if  the  possessor's  chief  aim 
in  life  were  the  culture  of  grapes,  these  characteristics,  how- 
ever admirable,  are  not  so  obviously  useful.  For  in  that 
case  chief  importance  must  be  attached  to  the  work,  not  to 
the  spirit  of  the  worker ;  and  it  may  be  as  well  not  to  be  too 
sentimental,  lest  the  indulgence  of  good  feeling  breed  dis- 
affection   in   men  who,   however  defective   in    temper,  have 

1  Psalm  xviii.  25 — 27. 

'  The  use  of  the  word  here  (ver.  15)  supplies  the  best  evidence  possible 
that  it  really  represents  a  different  idea  from  SLicatoc,  which  Jowett  in  his 
work  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  disputes  ;  vide  remarks  on  the  meaning 
of  iya96c  at  page  35-  BengePs  remark  on  ayaQoz  is :  qui  etiam  plus 
praestat  quam  justitia  (ver.  4)  infert. — Rom.  v.  7. 

O 


194  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  i. 

nevertheless  proved  themselves  good  workers,  and  borne  well 
the  burden  of  a  long  day,  and  the  scorching  heat  of  a  broiling 
sun.1  Manifestly  it  is  right  affections  rather  than  grapes  that 
this  householder  is  mainly  concerned  about,  and  it  is  this 
peculiarity  which  fits  him  to  be  an  emblem  of  the  kingdom 
of  God. 

2.  Having  ascertained  with  tolerable  certainty  the  character 
of  the  householder,  we  shall  find  little  difficulty  in  proving 
that  the  aim  and  effect  of  the  parable  is  to  illustrate  the 
supreme  importance  in  God's  sight  of  motive  as  a  measure 
of  value.  Two  objections  may  be  taken  to  this  view.  First, 
that  the  parable  itself  contains  no  trace  of  right  motive  in 
those  who  are  favoured  ;  and,  second,  that  all  receive  the 
same  sum,  whereas  the  supposed  design  of  the  parable 
requires  that  the  last  should  be  not  merely  put  on  a  level 
with  the  first,  but  placed  above  them. 

Now  as  to  the  former  of  these  objections,  it  is  true  that 
the  parabolic  representation  contains  no  express  allusion 
to  the  existence  of  right  feeling  in  the  last  hired,  or  to  the 
influence  of  such  feeling  on  the  master's  conduct.  But  was 
such  express  mention  really  necessary  ?  That  such  feeling 
existed  goes  without  being  said.  It  was  probable,  natural, 
almost  inevitable  in  the  circumstances.  Then  we  must 
assume  its  existence  in  order  to  render  the  master's  conduct 
intelligible  and  reasonable.  Reasonable,  we  say ;  for 
although  this  householder  was  from  the  world's  point  of 
view  eccentric,  he  was  not  foolish.  He  must  be  assumed 
to  have  acted  from  motives  thoroughly  rational,  regarded 
from  his  own  point  of  view.  But  if  we  assume  that  his 
action  had  no  relation  to  the  state  of  mind  of  those  whom 
it  concerned,  then  it  ceases  to  be  rational,  and  becomes 
purely  arbitrary.  But  surely  it  is  not  Christ's  intention  to 
represent  the  principal  actor  as  arbitrary,  though  He  does 
make  him  use  language  which  has  a  sound  of  arbitrariness 
in  rebutting  the  pretensions  of  unreasonable  men,  when  He 
puts  into  his  mouth  the  question,  "Is  it  not  lawful  for  me  to 
do  what  I  will  with  mine  own?""     We  cannot,  therefore, 

*  Ti  papot  rijs  riptpac  signifies  the  labour  of  the  whole  day  ;  t6v  tavouva 
the  intense  heat  of  the  middle  portion  of  the  day. 

*  Ver.  15.    The  force  ol  this  question  is  increased  if  we  insert  the  4  at 


CH.  viii.]  The  Hours.  195 

agree  with  the  opinion  expressed  by  a  respected  c<  mmentator, 
that  "  when  we  rise  above  the  particular  sphere  of  ideas  with 
which  the  parable  deals  the  quality  element  of  charactet 
comes  into  account;  but  the  parable  itself  does  not  lift  us 
into  this  sphere,  it  leaves  us  simply  in  the  sphere  of  the 
negative  ideas  that  the  time  consumed  in  working  and  the 
quantity  of  work  performed  do  not  determine  absolutely  the 
amount  of  glory  that  shall  be  enjoyed."  l  It  seems  to  us 
plain  that  the  parable  does  lift  us  into  this  sphere.  The 
principal  actor  in  the  parable  rises  into  this  sphere,  and  has 
his  being  in  it,  and  he  lifts  the  parable  itself  and  all  the 
subordinate  actors  therein  along  with  him.  In  order  that 
the  situation  may  suit  his  character,  we  must  assume  that 
the  first  and  last  hired  represent  two  classes  of  men  morally 
distinct :  the  first  being  the  self-complacent  and  calculating ; 
the  last  the  humble,  self-forgetful,  trustful,  grateful.  The 
first  are  the  Simons,  righteous,  respectable,  exemplary,  but 
hard,  prosaic,  ungenial ;  the  last  the  women  with  alabaster 
boxes,  who  for  long  have  been  idle,  aimless,  vicious,  wasteful 
of  life,  but  at  last,  with  bitter  tears  of  sorrow  over  an  unprofit- 
able past,  begin  life  in  earnest,  and  endeavour  to  redeem  lost 
time  by  the  passionate  devotion  with  which  they  serve  their 
Lord  and  Saviour.  Or,  once  more,  the  first  are  the  elder 
brothers  who  stay  at  home  in  their  father's  house,  and  never 
transgress  any  of  his  commandments,  and  have  no  mercy  on 
those  who  do ;  the  last  the  prodigals  who  leave  their  father's 
house  and  waste  their  substance  in  riotous  living,  but  at 
length  come  to  their  senses  and  say,  "  I  will  arise  and  go  to 
my  father,"  and  having  met  him,  exclaim,  "  Father,  I  have 
iinned,  and  am  no  more  worthy  to  be  called  thy  son." 

The  other  objection  to  our  view  of  the  parable  may  also 
be  disposed  of  without  much  difficulty.  It  is  true  that  all 
receive  the  same  sum,  the  denarius,  which  was  the  ordinary 
pay  for  a  day's  work  in  those  times.  But  this  fact  is  not  fatal 
to  the  view  that  the  purpose  of  the  parable  is  to  illustrate  the 
truth  that  diversity  of  spirit  may  cause  men  to  change  places, 
so  that  the  first  in  the  amount  of  work  or  sacrifice  shall  be 

the  beginning  of  the  sentence  found  in  many  MSS.     It  then  means,  Do 
you  dispute  what  I  had  thought  was  indisputable  ? 
*  Morrison, '  Commentary  on  Matthew,'  in  loc. 

O  2 


196  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ.    £book  1, 

last  in  the  reward,  and  vice  versd.  In  making  this  assertion 
we  do  not  insist  either  on  the  fact  that  the  last  were  paid 
first,  which  in  itself  is  of  no  great  moment,  or  on  the  fact 
that  the  last  were  paid  at  a  far  higher  rate  than  the  first, 
which  nevertheless  deserves  serious  consideration ;  but  simply 
on  this,  that  the  point  of  importance  is  not  what  each  received 
at  the  end  of  the  day,  but  the  will  of  the  master  manifested 
in  making  payment,  and  what  that  will  involved  and  must 
lead  to.  In  the  sentence  "  I  will  give  unto  this  last  even  as 
unto  thee,"  the  part  to  be  accentuated  is  not  the  "  even  as," 
but  the  "  I  will "  (0e'A.a>  eyo>).  The  denarius  is  not  the  centre 
of  the  story,  as  some  have  imagined,  but  the  will  of  him  who 
gives  it  to  each  of  his  labourers.  The  denarius  is  not  a 
fixture  for  that  will ;  equality  of  payment  is  not  a  law  by 
which  it  is  bound.  The  master  might  have  given  more  than 
the  denarius  to  the  last,  but  he  sufficiently  asserted  his  freedom 
and  sovereignty  in  giving  so  much  ;  and  there  was  a  certain 
appropriateness  in  fixing  on  the  particular  sum — it  was  a 
day's  wage  for  an  hour's  work.  And  then  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  the  master's  will  is  not  limited  in  its  action  to  one 
day.  It  is  so  limited  in  the  parabolic  representation,  and 
hence  the  illustration  of  the  apophthegm  with  which  it  begins 
and  ends  is  necessarily  defective ;  for  one  day  is  too  short  to 
exhibit  fully  the  action  of  the  forces  which  the  parable  sets 
in  motion.  But  the  master's  will  will  burst  the  bonds  of  to 
day,  and  act  to-morrow,  and  produce  results  in  advance  of 
those  of  to-day.  The  murmurers  of  to-day  will  not  be 
employed  at  all  to-morrow  unless  they  change  their  mood  ; 
for  the  ominous  "  Go  thy  way "  is  in  reality  an  order  to  quit 
the  service,  and  the  last-hired  of  to-day  will  be  morning 
workers  to-morrow ;  working  in  an  altogether  different  spirit 
from  the  murmurers  of  yesterday.  And  sw  at  length  the  last 
shall  be  first,1  and  the  first  last,  to  a  degree  not  visible  within 

1  The  use  of  the  future  (iaovrtu)  in  the  repetition  of  the  apophthegm  at 
the  close  of  the  parable  is  worthy  of  notice.  One  would  have  expected 
rather,  So  the  last  in  this  case  were  first.  May  the  reason  not  be  that  the 
parable  shows  a  process  of  reversal  begun,  but  not  fini 'shed,  and  pointing 
into  the  future  for  its  consummation  ?  It  cannot  be  said  that  the  sentence 
is  merely  a  repetition  of  the  one  at  the  close  of  the  previous  chapter,  and 
that  therefore  the  tense  of  the  verb  has  no  significance.  It  is  not  a  case 
of  exact  repetition,   for  the  important  word  roXXoi  is  omitted.     This 


ch.  viii.]  The  Hours,  197 

the  narrow  space  to  which  the  parabolic  representation  is 
confined. 

It  only  remains  to  add  that  no  parable  could  possibly 
supply  an  adequate  illustration  of  the  action  of  the  great 
moral  law  enunciated  by  Jesus  in  the  close  of  His  reply  to 
Peter's  question,  for  the  results  therein  pointed  at  are  realized 
only  gradually,  through  the  slow  but  sure  operation  of 
tendencies.  In  making  this  remark  we  have  in  view  such 
fulfilments  of  the  law  as  fall  within  our  observation  in  this 
present  life.  We  do  not  of  course  mean  to  limit  the  operation 
of  the  law  to  this  life.  The  question  has  been  much  discussed 
by  commentators,  What  does  the  denarius  denote  ?  Does 
it  refer  to  the  life  eternal,  or  to  something  experienced  in  this 
world  ?  In  our  way  of  looking  at  the  parable  the  question 
is  not  of  such  cardinal  importance  as  some  suppose.  But 
if  we  must  answer  it,  our  reply  is,  The  denarius  denotes  what 
ever  comes  under  the  category  of  reward,  and  that,  as  we  see 
from  our  Lord's  own  words  to  Peter,  embraces  both  the  life 
eternal  and  experiences  of  this  present  life.  And  we  believe 
that  the  law,  the  last  first  and  the  first  last,  applies  to  the 
eternal  as  well  as  to  the  temporal  side  of  the  reward.  We  do 
not  believe  in  the  equality  of  men's  conditions  in  the  life  to 
come  any  more  than  in  the  life  that  now  is.  The  general 
felicity  of  the  life  eternal  common  to  all  the  saved  will 
embrace  much  variety  of  special  condition  corresponding  to 
the  spiritual  histories  of  individuals :  some  will  receive  a  full 
reward,  others  a  less  ample  recompense ;  and  then,  too,  it  will 
be  seen  that  some  last  ones  will  take  precedence  of  some  who 
in  this  life  were  reputed  to  be  first.  But  of  the  life  to  come 
and  its  conditions  our  thoughts  are  dim,  and  we  are  perplexed 
when  we  attempt  to  apply  to  eternity  the  graduated  distinc- 
tions of  time.  The  category  of  the  absolute  dominates  all 
our  thoughts  of  the  eternal  world.  We  think  of  the  good 
as  absolutely  good,  and  of  the  evil  as  absolutely  evil,  and  of 
the  blessedness  and  misery  of  the  two  classes  as  admitting 
of  no  degrees.  Therefore  it  is  easier  for  us  to  understand  the 
application  of  the  law  to  this  present  life,  where  the  distinction 

omission  is  made  to  adapt  the  saying  to  the  parable ;  so  also  is  the 
inversion  of  the  clauses.  Why  then  was  the  tense  not  changed  for  the 
same  purpose,  so  that  the  sentence  might  stand,  Thus  the  last  in  tbo 
parable  became  first,  and  the  first  last? 


198  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  l 

of  good  and  evil  is  relative,  and  where  the  action  of  spiritual 
law  reveals  itself  in  the  form  of  tendencies.  Under  this  form 
we  may  confidently  expect  to  find  every  law,  valid  for  the 
eternal  world,  exercising  its  influence  unceasingly.  For  with 
respect  to  the  action  of  moral  law,  the  two  spheres,  the 
eternal  and  the  temporal,  are  virtually  one.  As  the  blue  sky 
is  but  the  omnipresent  atmosphere  projected  by  the  eye  to 
an  indefinite  distance  in  space,  so  the  eternal  judgment  is  the 
incessantly  active  moral  order  of  the  world,  projected  by  the 
conscience  to  an  indefinite  distance  in  future  time.  This 
general  observation  applies  in  full  force  to  the  law  now  under 
consideration.  It  is  a  law  amply  illustrated  in  history.  In 
the  parable  the  will  of  the  householder  has  a  very  narrow 
platform  on  which  to  exhibit  itself,  but  God's  will  has  the 
whole  history  of  the  world  in  which  to  display  its  purposes. 
The  moral  order  of  the  world  serves  that  will,  and  unfolds  to 
view  its  contents.  And  to  a  wise  observer  the  law,  first  last 
and  last  first,  can  be  seen  slowly  but  certainly  fulfilling  itself 
both  in  individuals  and  in  communities.  It  is  possible  even 
to  classify  the  cases  in  which  the  first  tend  to  become  last. 
The  law  fulfils  itself  in  such  cases  as  these:  when  those  who 
make  sacrifices  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  manifest  the  spirit 
of  self-devotion  in  occasional  acts  rather  than  in  a  fixed 
habit ;  when  any  particular  species  of  Christian  activity  has 
come  to  be  in  fashion,  and  therefore  in  high  esteem  among 
men,  involving  consequently  temptations  to  vanity,  spiritual 
pride,  and  presumption  ;  or  when,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
ascetics,  self-denial  is  reduced  to  a  system  practised,  not  for 
Christ's  sake,  but  for  its  own  sake.1  When  we  consider  how 
much  Christian  activity  comes  under  one  or  other  of  these 
heads, — occasional  spasmodic  efforts,  good  works  in  high 
esteem  in  the  religious  world,  and  good  works  done,  not  so 
much  from  interest  in  the  work,  as  from  their  reflex  bearing 
on  the  doer's  religious  interests, — we  must  feel  that  Christ  did 
not  speak  too  strongly  when  He  said  many  that  are  first  shall 
be  last.  Far  from  charging  His  language  with  exaggeration, 
we  rather  admire  its  moderation  in  virtually  admitting  that 
there  are  exceptions.     Exceptions  unquestionably  there  are. 

1  For  more  extended  observations  on  this  topic,  vide  '  The  Training  of 
the  Twelve,'  cap.  xvi.  sec.  > 


CH.  vni.]  The  Hours.  199 

There  are  some  first  ones  who  shall  not  be  last ;  and  there 
are  some  last  ones  who  shall  not  be  first.  If  it  were  other- 
wise— if  to  be  last  in  length  of  service,  in  zeal,  or  in  devotion 
gave  one  an  advantage  invariably  and  of  course,  it  would 
be  ruinous  to  the  kingdom  of  God  ;  as  in  effect  putting  a 
premium  on  indolence  and  encouraging  men  to  stand  all  the 
day  idle.  But  it  is  not  so.  It  is  no  advantage  in  itself  to  be 
last,  and  it  is  no  disadvantage  to  be  first.  The  first  in  sacrifice 
may  also  be  first  in  reward ;  the  Church's  noblest  ones  are 
men  who  have  been  first  in  both  respects.  But  the  number 
of  such  is  comparatively  few.  "  For  many  are  called,  but  few 
are  chosen."  Many,  that  is,— for  so  we,  with  Bengel  and 
others,  understand  the  reflection  wherewith  the  parable  con- 
cludes,— many  are  called  to  work  in  God's  vineyard,  and 
many  are  actually  at  work ;  but  few  are  choice  workers,  few 
work  for  God  in  the  spirit  of  the  precepts  taught  by  Jesus ; 
with  ardent  devotion,  yet  with  deep  humility.1 

Taking  the  householder  in  this  parable,  benevolent  towards 
those  whom  no  man  had  hired,  and  showing  favour  to  those 
who  gratefully  appreciated  his  kindness,  as  a  type  of  God,  the 
lesson  taught  by  the  parable  is  that  God  is  a  God  of  grace, 
and  that  He  giveth  His  grace  to  the  lowly.  The  lesson  is 
a  perfectly  general  one,  susceptible  of  many  historical  illustra- 
tions, no  one  of  which  is  entitled  to  be  regarded  as  the  one 
principally  intended.  Some  think  the  parable  refers  especially 
to  the  case  of  the  Jews  and  the  Gentiles ;  the  Jews  being 

1  The  words  in  question  are  of  doubtful  authority,  and  Calvin  thought 
they  should  be  omitted.  If  retained  they  must  bear  the  meaning  given  to 
them  in  the  text,  as  the  only  one  in  harmony  with  the  connection  of 
thought  It  is  the  sense  put  on  the  words  by  Bengel,  Grotius,  Unger, 
Olshausen,  &c.  Bengel  says  :  UXiktoI  exquisiti  prae  aliis.  Videtur  hoc 
loco  ubi  primum  occurrit,  non  omnes  salvandos  denotare,  sed  horum 
excellentissimos.  Grotius  observes  that  the  Greeks  also  used  the  word 
U\ikt6v  to  denote  what  is  distinguished  in  anything  (to  l£aiptrov\  and 
quotes  as  a  parallel  saying,  iroWoi  plv  vap9t)Ko<p6poi,  wavpoi  Si  n  /3a<cx0fc 
Kuinoel,  who  adopts  the  same  view,  cites  as  a  parallel  sentiment  from 
Virgil :  Pauci,  quos  aequus  amavit  Jupiter,  atque  ardens  evexit  ad  sidera 
virtus. — '  JEn.,'  vi.  130.  Olshausen  says  the  <\r]roi  are  all  workers,  even 
the  irpu>rot.  The  IkKikto'i  are  the  taxarot,  who  occupy  a  freer  position  to 
the  kingdom,  and  work  out  of  inner  pleasure  and  love.  Arnot.  who  takes 
the  same  view,  refers  to  Rev.  xvii.  14  for  a  similar  use  of  the  word 
UXtKToi,  where  the  Lamb's  followers  are  spoken  of  as  eJijroi  *a»  UXqurU 
gal  naroi ;  picked  men,  spiritual  heroes  so  to  speak. 


200  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ.    £bcok  i. 

represented  by  the  men  hired  in  the  morning,  the  Gentiles  by 
the  men  engaged  at  the  eleventh  hour.  It  has  been  suggested 
by  others  that  the  parable  primarily  relates  to  grudges  within 
the  circle  of  disciples  on  the  part  of  the  first  called  against 
those  called  at  a  later  period.1  Such  suggestions  are 
legitimate  and  useful  when  they  are  put  forth  simply  for  the 
purpose  of  exemplifying  the  operation  of  a  principle,  but 
they  ought  not  to  be  regarded  as  exhausting  the  scope  of 
the  parable. 

THE  TALENTS;    OR,  EQUAL  DILIGENCE  IN   THE  USE  OF 

UNEQUAL   ENDOWMENTS   EQUALLY   REWARDED 

IN  THE  DIVINE  KINGDOM. 

For  [the  kingdom  of  heaven  is] 2  as  a  man  travelling  into  a  far  country? 
who  called  his  own  servants,  and  delivered  unto  them  his  goods.  A  nd 
unto  one  he  gave  Jive  talents,  to  another  two,  and  to  another  one ;  to 
every  man  according  to  his  several  ability ;  and  then  he  took  his  journey. 
Then  he  that  had  received  the  five  talents  went  straightway 4  and  traded 
with  the  same,  and  made  other  five  talents.  And  likewise  he  that 
had  received  the  two,  he  gained  other  two.  But  he  that  received 
the  one  went  away  and  dug  in  the  earth,  and  hid  his  lord's  money. 
And  after  a  long  time  the  lord  of  those  servants  cometh,  and  reckoneth 
with  them.  And  he  that  received  the  five  talents  came  and  brought 
other  five  talents,  saying,  Lord,  thou  deliveredst  unto  me  five  talents  : 
behold,  I  have  gained  five  talents  more.  His  lord  said  unto  him, 
Well  done,  thou  good  and  faithful  servant :  thou  hast  been  faithful 
over  a  few  things,  I  will  set  thee  over  many  things  ;  5  enter  thou  into 
the  joy  of  thy  lord.  And  he  also  that  received  the  two  talents  came 
and  said,  Lord,  thou  deliveredst  unto  me  two  talents  :  lo,  I  have  gained 
other  two  talents.  His  lord  said  unto  him,  Well  done,  thou  good  and 
faithful  servant :  thou  hast  been  faithful  over  a  few  things,  I  will  set 
thee  over  many  things :  enter  thou  into  the  joy  of  thy  lord.  Then  he 
also  that  received  the  one  talent  came  and  said,  Lord,  I  knew  thee 

1  So  Weizsacker,  '  Untersuchungen,'  p.  429. 

•  There  are  no  words  in  the  original  answering  to  those  within  brackets. 
We  may  fill  up  the  hiatus  either  as  in  the  A.  V.  or,  as  some  prefer,  the 
return  of  the  Son  of  man  will  be,  so  connecting  the  parable  closely  with 
the  previous  verse.  The  formula  of  the  A.  V.  is  to  be  preferred,  as  it 
takes  nothing  for  granted  as  to  the  historical  connection. 

8  Rather  into  a  foreign  country,  leaving  bis  own. 

•  Vide  further  on  for  justification  of  this  arrangement  of  the  words. 

•  This  does  not  signify  a  change  of  sphere,  as  in  the  parable  of  the 
Pounds  (from  traders  to  rulers),  but  advancement  within  the  same  sphere. 
The  rendering  in  the  A.  V.  betrays  the  influence  of  the  other  parable. 


CH.  viii.]  The   Talents.  201 

that  thou  art  an  hard  man,  reaping  where  thou  didst  not  sow,  and 
gathering  where  thou  didst  not  scatter :  and  I  was  afraid,  and  went 
away  and  hid  thy  talent  in  the  earth  :  lo,  thou  hast  thine  own.  But 
his  lord  answered  and  said  unto  him,  Thou  wicked  and  slothful 
servant,  thou  knewest  that  I  reap  where  I  sowed  not,  and  gather 
where  I  scattered  not :  thou  oughtest  therefore  to  have  put  my 
money  to  the  bankers,  and  at  my  coming  I  should  have  received  back 
my  own  with  interest.  Take  the  talent  from  him,  and  give  it  to  him 
who  hath  the  ten  talents.  For  unto  every  one  that  hath  shall  be  given, 
and  he  shall  have  abundance  :  but  from  him  that  hath  not  shall  be 
taken  even  that  which  he  hath.  And  cast  ye  out  the  unprofitable 
servant  into  the  outer  darkness  :  there  shall  be  the  weeping  and  tht 
gnashing  of  teeth. — Matt.  xxv.  14 — 30. 

The  alternative  title  above  indicated  is  not  proposed  as  an 
exhaustive  statement  of  the  didactic  significance  of  the 
parable  of  the  talents.  The  parable  manifestly  springs  out 
of  two  motives,  and  we  run  no  great  risk  of  too  much 
subtlety  in  our  analysis  if  we  represent  it  as  the  outcome  ot 
three.  It  teaches  these  three  distinct  if  not  equally  im 
portant  truths  concerning  work  for  the  kingdom  of  God  : — 

1.  The  consummation  of  the  kingdom  will  be  long  enough 
deferred  to  leave  ample  time  for  work. 

2.  The  kingdom  imperatively  demands  work  from  all  it* 
citizens. 

3.  The  work  done  will  be  valued  and  rewarded  according 
to  the  principle  above  enunciated :  equal  diligence  in  the 
use  of  unequal  endowment  receiving  an  equal  reward. 

I.  Certain  features  in  the  parable  seem  intended  to  teach 
that  there  will  be  time  to  work — to  work  as  well  as  to  wait} 
The  chief  points  bearing  on  this  topic  are  the  following : — 

(a)  The  householder  travels  into  a  far  country,  and  return* 
not  till  after  a  long  time!1  The  phrase  is  an  elastic  one, 
and  may  denote  either  a  large  portion  of  the  life  of  an 
individual,  or  an  age  in  the  history  of  the  world.  We  now 
naturally  put  the  latter  interpretation  on  the  words,  but  it 

>  Trench  has  some  good  remarks  on  the  affinities  and  contrast  between 
this  parable  and  that  of  the  ten  virgins  (Matt.  xxv.  I — 12),  the  object  of 
which  is  to  inculcate  the  duty  of  watching  and  waiting.  As  we  deem  it  un- 
desirable to  be  over-confident  as  to  the  historical  connection,  we  refrain 
from  indulging  in  a  similar  line  of  reflection,  while  sensible  of  it?  fruit- 
fulness  in  edification. 

1  ptru  woXtv  xpovov,  ver.  19. 


202  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  i. 

is  probable  that  they  suggested  the  former  sense  to  the  first 
hearers  of  the  parable.1  Even  on  the  narrower  interpretation 
they  contained  an  important  hint  to  those  who  belonged  to 
the  first  Christian  generation.  The  mind  of  that  generation 
was  fixed,  with  an  intensity  which  we  have  difficulty  in 
conceiving,  on  the  second  coming  of  the  Lord ;  and  some 
seem  to  have  expected  that  event  so  soon  that  they  abandoned 
all  worldly  business,  and  gave  themselves  up  to  an  attitude 
of  passive  waiting,  or  to  feverish,  restless  excitement.  The 
demoralising  effect  of  the  belief  in  the  near  approach  of  the 
second  advent  manifested  itself  to  such  an  extent  in  the 
Church  at  Thessalonica,  that  the  Apostle  Paul  found  it 
needful  to  interpose,  and  to  endeavour  by  seasonable  counsels 
of  Christian  wisdom  to  bring  the  fanaticised  community  to  a 
soberer  state  of  mind.  The  sum  of  his  advice  was,  Work, 
and  do  not  merely  idly  wait.  The  disease  and  the  remedy 
are  admirably  hit  off  in  a  couple  of  verses :  "  We  hear  that 
there  are  some  which  walk  among  you  disorderly,  working 
not  at  all,  but  are  busy-bodies.  Now  them  that  are  such 
we  command  and  exhort  by  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  that 
with  quietness  they  work,  and  eat  their  own  bread."2  No- 
where does  the  apostle's  good  sense  appear  more  conspicu- 
ously than  in  his  manner  of  dealing  with  the  spiritual  malady 
that  had  broken  out  in  that  community.  We  know  not 
whether  he  was  acquainted  with  our  parable  when,  at  an 
early  stage  in  his  apostolic  career,  he  wrote  his  Epistles  to 
the  Thessalonians,  but  in  any  case  he  was  in  full  sympathy 
with  the  mind  of  Christ  as  revealed  in  the  parable.  For  by 
the  use  of  the  suggestive  phrase  after  a  long  time  Jesus 
significantly  hinted  just  what  Paul  afterwards  more  plainly 
said :  that  the  day  of  the  Lord  would  not  come  so  soon  that 
there  would  be  no  use  setting  oneself  deliberately  to  any 
task ;  that,  while  ever  watching,  disciples  must  also  ever 
cultivate  a  sober  temper,  and  give  themselves  earnestly  to 
Christian  work,  as  if  all  things  were  to  follow  their  wonted 
course  till  the  end  of  their  lives. 

(fi)  There  will  be  time  enough,  according  to  the  parable, 
for  diligent  servants  to  double  the  capital  entrusted  to  them.8 

1  Olsbausen  says  the  phrase  does  not  exclude  a  return  of  the  Lord  in 
the  time  of  the  apostles. 
*  2  Thess.  iii.  II,  is.  *  Vers.  16,  17. 


ch.  viii.]  The   Talents.  203 

How  long  that  process  may  take  depends  on  circumstances ; 
it  may  be  a  year,  or  it  may  be  well  on  for  a  lifetime.  But 
beforehand  the  longer  period  is  more  likely  than  the  shorter 
one;  and  a  prudent  trader  who  starts  with  a  capital  equal  to 
about  a  thousand  pounds  sterling x  will  think  of  such  a  sub- 
stantial increase  only  as  the  result  of  a  long-continued  course 
of  industry. 

(c)  The  lapse  of  a  considerable  period  ere  the  master's 
return  is  implied  in  the  absence  of  all  reference  to  a  speedy 
return  in  the  excuse  of  the  slothful  servant.  It  may  be 
taken  for  granted  that  that  servant  would  have  been  glad  to 
excuse  himself  in  a  less  impudent  way  if  he  could.  He 
could  not  but  know  the  risk  he  ran  in  speaking  of  one  who 
had  absolute  power  over  him,  to  his  face,  as  he  did,  calling 
him  an  hard  man,  reaping  where  he  had  not  sowed,  and 
gathering  where  he  had  not  strawed  ;  *  in  other  words,  as  an 
arbitrary,  exacting  tyrant,  who  expects  his  servants  to 
perform  impossible  tasks ;  to  make  bricks  without  straw,  to 
produce  a  harvest  of  results  where  he  had  not  supplied  them 
with  the  seed  out  of  which  such  a  harvest  might  naturally 
grow.  It  was  not  in  wanton  recklessness  that  he  thus  spoke, 
but  because  nothing  more  plausible  in  the  way  of  excuse 
occurred  to  him  at  the  moment.  How  gladly  would  he 
rather  have  pleaded,  I  was  just  about  to  begin  to  work  when 
your  arrival  took  me  by  surprise ;  I  did  not  expect  your 
return  so  soon ; 3  or,  I  did  not  think  it  worth  while  to  begin 
trading,  for  I  knew  that  you  would  return  so  soon  that  there 
would  be  no  time  to  buy  and  sell  and  make  gain — that  is  to 

1  The  value  of  a  talent  was  in  round  numbers  about  ^200,  so  that  five 
talents  would  amount  to  about  ^1000. 

*  It  is  doubtful  whether  the  two  parts  of  this  proverbial  saying  employed 
to  describe  a  curmudgeon  mean  the  same  thing  or  different  things.  Trench 
paraphrases  the  second  clause,  "gatherest  with  the  rake  where  others  have 
winnowed  with  the  fan,"  thus  finding  in  it  a  reference  to  threshing.  Weiss 
is  of  the  same  opinion  ;  also  Olshausen.  It  seems  likely  that  the  proverb 
contains  reference  to  two  forms  of  keen  dealing  :  one  drawn  from  reaping, 
another  from  winnowing.     So  viewed  it  has  a  greatly  intensified  strength. 

8  The  fact  that  such  an  excuse  is  not  represented  as  being  advanced 
is  used  by  Schleiermacher  as  an  argument  to  prove  that  the  parable  is 
not  in  its  proper  historical  place.  He  thinks  if  the  parable  had  been 
spoken  to  enforce  the  duty  of  watching,  such  an  excuse  would  have  been 
put  into  the  mouth  of  the  unprofitable  servant. 


204  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ.    £book  l 

say,  make  the  very  same  excuse  for  idleness  with  which  the 
religious  busy-bodies  of  Thessalonica  justified  to  their  own 
consciences  their  neglect  of  the  ordinary  duties  of  their 
calling. 

2.  The  second  lesson — that  the  kingdom  imperatively 
demands  work  from  all  its  citizens — is  taught  by  seveial 
outstanding  features  of  the  parable. 

{a)  First l  we  note  the  minute  but  significant  touch  about 
the  servant  who  had  received  five  talents  proceeding  straight- 
way to  trade  with  the  money  lent  him.  For  we  cannot  but 
agree  with  those  interpreters  who  think  that  the  adverb 
(ei/0e'cos)  is  to  be  taken  along  with  the  verb  following  (7ropei>0eis),s 
rather  than  with  the  verb  go;ng  before  (cnrefojurio-ev).  By 
this  arrangement  the  word  is  charged  with  immensely  in- 
creased significance.  To  what  end  say  of  the  master  that  he 
straightway  took  his  journey?  It  has  been  suggested  that 
the  end  served  is  to  convey  the  idea  that  the  lord  gave  no 
further  instructions  how  to  use  the  money,  but  left  his 
servants  to  use  the  talents  according  to  their  own  discretion.8 
But  to  this  it  has  been  effectively  replied  that  the  clause 
"  to  each  man  according  to  his  ability  "  rendered  that  unneces- 
sary ;  and,  moreover,  that  in  that  case  the  idle  servant  would 
have  referred  to  the  fact  as  an  excuse.*  On  the  other  hand, 
take  the  evQtm  along  with  what  follows,  as  even  usage 
requires  us  to  do,6  and  how  full  of  important  meaning  it 
becomes !  It  then  teaches  the  great  lesson  of  urgency  and 
promptitude.  It  says  to  us,  The  demands  of  the  kingdom 
are  very  pressing  ;  to  work  then  at  once  without  delay ;  to 
be  prompt  in  action  is  a  cardinal  virtue  in  the  kingdom. 

{b)  The  rigour  with  which  the  unfaithful  servant  is  judged 

1  We  do  not  make  a  point  of  the  fact  that  the  talents  were  given  to 
trade  with,  for  that  is  not  said  in  this  parable,  though  a  similar  statement 
is  made  in  Luke's  parable  of  the  Pounds.  But  in  reality  what  is  not  said 
is  implied  in  the  nature  of  the  case.  The  talents  were  not  gifts  to  friends, 
but  loans  to  slaves,  who  belonged  themselves  to  the  master,  and  traded 
solely  for  his  benefit.  Such  a  procedure  as  the  parable  supposes  was  in 
accordance  with  custom. 

*  Ver.  1 6.  'So  Meyer. 

«  Weiss,  '  Matthaus-Evang/  Fritsche  takes  the  same  view  of  the  verbal 
connection. 

6  Weiss  points  out  that  in  Matthew  tiGius  always  stands  before  the  verb 
which  it  qualifies. 


ch.  viii.J  The   Talents.  205 

points  in  the  same  direction.  The  epithets  applied  to  him 
are  veiy  significant  in  this  connection.  He  is  called  wicked 
L-novr\p6s),  slothful  (oKvr]f)6<i),1  and  unprofitable  (axpaos).2  The 
first  epithet  refers  not  so  much  to  the  injurious  opinion 
expressed  by  the  unfaithful  one  of  his  master,  as  to  the 
unrighteousness  of  his  conduct  in  not  following  a  course  that 
was  open  to  him,  even  if  all  he  said  of  the  master  were  true. 
So  far  as  mere  personal  feeling  is  concerned,  the  master  can 
bear  to  be  evil  thought  of  and  evil  spoken  of.  He  calmly 
repeats  the  injurious,  insolent  words,  and  instead  of  com- 
plaining of  them,  or  being  roused  to  indignation  by  them,  or 
endeavouring  to  show  how  unfounded  they  are,  he  proceeds 
rather  to  point  out  what  the  servant  ought  to  have  done  if 
he  believed  his  own  opinion  of  his  master  to  be  true.  It  is 
the  interest  of  the  work,  not  the  personal  insult  to  himself, 
that  the  lord  thinks  of  when  he  calls  his  slave  wicked.  It 
almost  seems  as  if  he  felt  that  there  was  something,  if  not  to 
justify,  at  least  to  excuse  the  unfavourable  opinion  of  himself 
cherished  by  the  servant.  He  knows  there  is  that  about  his 
requirements  which  may  not  unnaturally  wear  an  aspect  of 
hardness  to  certain  men,  especially  to  those  who  have  received 
small  endowments ;  nay,  even  to  those  who  have  been  most 
liberally  endowed.  And  his  very  tolerance  of  hard  thoughts 
is  another  index  of  the  exacting  demands  of  his  service. 
There  is  just  one  thing  he  cannot  tolerate — waste  of  oppor- 
tunity, keeping  his  money  lying  idle,  neglecting  to  make  the 
most  of  things,  sloth,  unprofitableness.  Mere  indolence  is  in 
his  view  wickedness,  for  it  is  selfishness,  and  selfishness,  as 
the  moral  opposite  of  that  self-devotion  which  is  the  cardinal 
virtue  of  the  Divine  kingdom,  is  to  the  Lord  of  the  kingdom 
the  very  essence  of  evil. 

Then  observe,  as  another  index  of  rigour,  the  declinature 
to  sustain  any  excuse  on  the  part  of  the  unprofitable  servant. 
If  a  servant  fear  his  master's  anger  in  case  he  lose  his  money 
in  some  unfortunate  venture,  and  on  that  account  shrink  from 
running  ordinary  business  risks,  he  must  find  out  and  follow 
some  other  method  of  turning  his  capital  to  account.  He 
may  not  content  himself  with  digging  a  pit  in  the  earth  and 
burying  his  talent  there,  where  it  will  be  safe  at  least,  if  not 
»  Vcr  26.  •  Ver.  30. 


206  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  i. 

in  the  way  of  making  increase.  If  the  master  is  to  be 
regarded  as  a  hard  man,  he  must  get  the  benefit  of  his  bad 
character,  and  his  money  must  be  laid  out  to  usury  at  least, 
if  it  is  not  to  be  employed  in  commerce.1  This  stern  rejection 
of  excuses  is  specially  instructive  when  it  is  considered  that 
the  excuses  are  offered  by  the  man  who  received  only  one 
talent.  It  is  natural  to  inquire  why  he  is  selected  to  play 
the  part  of  the  unprofitable  servant.  The  explanation  which 
most  readily  occurs  to  one  is,  that  those  who  receive  small 
endowments  are  most  tempted  to  negligence  by  a  depressing 
sense  of  the  insignificance  of  their  powers  and  the  valueless- 
ness  of  any  results  which  they  may  be  able  to  achieve.  And 
there  is  certainly  some  truth  in  this  view.  Yet  second 
thoughts  breed  doubt  as  to  whether  this  be  indeed  the  true 
rationale  of  the  matter.  For  one  who  reflects  on  the  history 
of  mankind  cannot  but  feel  that  sloth  is  by  no  means  confined 
to  the  poorly  endowed  ;  that  indeed  some  of  the  most  tragic 
examples  of  negligence  and  unprofitableness  have  been  ex- 
hibited among  the  most  highly-gifted  of  men.     Probably  the 

.  true  reason  of  the  selection  is  to  enforce  the  doctrine  of 
universal  and  exceptionless  obligation.  The  man  of  one 
talent  is  represented  as  playing  the  part  of  idler,  just  because 
he  is  the  man  who  would  be  thought  most  easily  excusable ; 
the  purpose  being  to  teach  that  excuse  for  negligence  will 
be  accepted  in  no  case,  not  even  in  the  case  of  those  whose 

V  power  of  service  is  a  minimum.8 

(c)  Another  most  significant  feature  in  this  connection  is  the 

1  On  roig  TpairtZiratc  Grotius  remarks  :  ne  dicas  invenire  te  non  potuisse 
quibus  pecunia  esset  opus.  Argentarii  ab  omnibus  pecunias  sumunt 
foenore.  The  words  lyw  hKopiadpriv,  &c.  (I  would  have  received  mine  own 
with  usury,  ver.  27)  he  paraphrases  i}\0ov  KOfiiZtoQcu,  i.  e.  exegissem,  and 
gives  as  the  sense,  non  est  etiam  quod  in  collocanda  pecunia  periculum 
obtendas  :  mea  erat.  Ego  earn  exegissem  non  tuo  sed  meo  periculo. 
Tuti  enim  sunt  qui  res  alienas  administrant  quoties  eis  credunt  quorum 
fidei  publice  creditur.  It  was  a  way  by  which  the  servant  might  benefit 
the  master  without  incurring  any  risk  himself.  Meyer  points  out  that  the 
expression  (fiaXtlv  toiq  rpaw.)  conveys  the  idea  of  an  action  involving  no 
trouble.  The  servant  had  only  to  throw  the  gold  on  the  table.  Lightfoot 
('  Horae  Hebraicae')  anxiously  defends  Christ  from  the  charge  of  approv- 
ing of  the  custom  of  taking  usury  by  pointing  out  that  the  lord  did  not 
give  the  talents  at  first  to  be  put  to  usury,  but  merely  referred  to  the 
Bioney-changers  in  self-defence  and  by  way  of  argumentum  ad  hominem. 

*  So  Unger. 


CH.  viii.J  The   Talents.  20J 

taking  of  the  talent  from  the  unprofitable  servant  and  giving 
of  it  to  him  that  had  ten.  It  is  taken  from  the  one  because 
he  is  unprofitable,  because  he  has  already  shown  that  he  can 
make  no  use  of  it ;  and  it  is  given  to  the  other  because  he  has 
shown  that  he  can  make  most  use  of  it.  Both  facts  indicate 
most  forcibly  the  urgency  of  the  demand  for  work  and  profit ; 
and,  we  may  add,  both  facts  are  in  most  exact  accord  with 
the  moral  order  of  the  world  as  revealed  in  human  history. 
It  is  not  merely  in  the  parable  that  unto  every  one  that  hath 
much  is  given  more,  so  that  he  hath  abundance,  and  from 
him  that  hath  nothing  which  he  can  show  as  the  fruit  of  his 
own  industry  is  taken  away  even  that  which  he  hath  in  the 
form  of  stock  in  trade.1  This  stern  law  verifies  itself  with 
inexorable  rigour  in  the  history  of  individuals  and  of  com- 
munities, and  in  giving  utterance  to  the  remarkable  saying 
Christ  but  read  off  accurately  one  of  the  great  moral  con- 
ditions of  human  life. 

(d)  Note  finally  under  this  head  the  doom  of  the  unprofit- 
able servant.  "And  cast  ye  the  unprofitable  servant  into 
outer  darkness :  there  shall  be  the  weeping  and  gnashing  of 
teeth."  An  awful  doom,  however  mildly  interpreted.  A 
commentator  whom  we  often  quote  with  approval  remarks 
thereon,  "  The  punishment  of  the  slothful  one  is  not  eternal 
damnation.  The  Bible  is  very  exact  in  its  speech  on  the 
subject.  The  unfaithful  children  of  light  are  cast  into  dark- 
ness; the  children  of  darkness  are  cast  into  eternal  fire,  each 
being  punished  through  his  own  opposite." 2  Another  com- 
mentator of  sound  judgment  and  unimpeachable  orthodoxy 
says,  "  Outer  darkness  is  opposed  to  domestic  light ;  for  as 
in  ancient  times  feasts  were  held  commonly  in  the  night, 
Christ  represents  those  who  are  cast  out  of  the  kingdom 
of  God  as  thrust  forth  into  the  darkness." 3  Be  it  so ;  the 
least  doom  of  the  unprofitable  one  is  to  be  left  out  in  the  cold 
and  the  darkness  of  night,  while  the  faithful  ones  who  have 
done  well  share  the  joy  of  their  returned  lord  within  the 
bright  festive  halls ;  and  while  they  enjoy  the  good  cheer, 
there  is  for  him,  poor  wight,  nothing  but  "  weeping  and  gnash- 
ing of  teeth " — tears  of  regret  over  a  wasted  life  and   lost 

*  The  sentence  is  thus  explained  by  Weiss. 

•  Olshausen.  •  Calvin, 


ao8  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  i. 

opportunities,  and  bitter  chagrin  at  thought  of  the  joy  he  too 
might  have  had,  had  he  only  been  faithful.  And  all  this  for 
no  greater  offence  than  burying  his  talent  in  the  earth.  He  has 
not  squandered  it  in  riotous  living,  he  has  simply  been  timid, 
over-cautious,  too  nervously  afraid  of  responsibility,  too 
gloomy  in  his  views  of  God's  character  and  of  life's  risks. 
How  hard  that  the  "  fearful,"1  the  cowards,  should  fare  as  the 
vilest  of  sinners !  How  needful,  this  being  so,  to  remember 
that  God  hath  not  given  us  the  spirit  of  fear,  but  of  power, 
and  of  love,  and  of  a  sound  mind  ;  how  valuable  the  virtue  of 
manly  courage  to  face  the  stern  responsibilities  of  life  and  the 
inexorable  demands  of  the  Divine  kingdom  ! 

(e)  One  other  reflection  may  here  be  added.  Nothing  can 
more  strikingly  evince  the  intense  desire  of  Christ,  in  uttering 
this  parable,  to  impress  upon  His  hearers  the  sense  of  obliga- 
tion than  the  manner  in  which  the  religious  application  breaks 
through  the  parabolic  form  of  representation.  Three  times 
over  in  the  replies  of  the  master  to  his  servants  the  figurative 
manner  of  expression  appropriate  to  the  parable  is  replaced 
by  language  belonging  to  the  spiritual  interpretation.  "  To 
enter  the  joy  of  the  Lord,  and  to  be  cast  into  outer  darkness, 
are  phrases  which  have  nothing  in  common  with  the  affairs  of 
the  bank."8 

But  let  us  not  exaggerate  the  severity  of  the  demands  which 
the  kingdom  makes.  While  certainly  exacting,  these  demands 
are  at  the  same  time  reasonable.  First,  to  each  man  is  given 
and  of  each  man  is  required  only  "  according  to  his  several 
ability?  This  is  a  very  suggestive  expression.  If  we  assume 
that  the  talents  signify  spiritual  endowments,  gifts  directly 
fitting  for  service  in  the  kingdom  of  God,8  then  the  phrase  in 

1  Vide  Rev.  xxi.  8,  where  the  cowards  (  &  iXoic)  are  classed  with  murderers, 
adulterers,  liars,  &c. 

8  Reuss,  '  Histoire  Evangelique.' 

•  This  is  the  usual  view ;  but  Weiss  thinks  that  the  talents  have  no 
reference  either  to  spiritual  gifts  or  to  the  exercise  of  a  spiritual  calling, 
but  are  perfectly  general,  embracing  all  manner  of  endowments.  Their 
meaning  is  explained,  he  thinks,  by  the  gnome  "  unto  him  that  hath/'  &c, 
and  the  lesson  is  that  the  right  use  of  gifts  and  goods,  both  in  nature  and 
in  the  kingdom  of  God,  is  rewarded  with  more,  and  the  neglect  with 
deprivation.  That  this  is  true  there  can  be  no  doubt,  and  it  is  an  instance 
of  the  ^.eep  wisdom  of  Jesus  that  He  thus  enunciates  a  far-reaching  moral 


ch.  viii.J  The   Talents.  209 

question  suggests  the  idea  that  the  spiritual  is  shaped  by  the 
natural,  so  that  the  lowest  in  the  scale  of  natural  ability  is  also 
the  lowest  in  the  scale  of  grace.  That  this  is  the  actual  fact 
observation  attests,  and  though  at  first  sight  it  may  appear  a 
hard  law,  on  deeper  consideration  it  will  be  seen  to  be  merciful. 
For  "the  degree  of  the  gift  is  the  measure  of  accountability. 
Whether  is  it  fairer  to  give  to  a  man  possessed  of  one  degree 
of  ability  five  talents  or  one  ?  Is  it  fairer  to  endow  him 
according  to  his  ability  or  beyond  his  ability  ?  It  is  enough 
to  say  that  in  the  one  case  failure  is  crime,  in  the  other 
necessity."  l 

Next,  for  the  timid  and  unventuresome  there  is  always  an 
alternative.  There  are  the  money-changers  (rpa7reCtrai)  for 
those  who  shrink  from  the  risks  of  trade.  Here  it  is  unneces- 
sary to  inquire  what  precisely  Christ  had  in  view  when  He 
used  this  remarkable  expression.  All  we  can  be  sure  of  is 
that  He  meant  to  teach  that  no  man  in  this  world  is  absolutely 
doomed  to  inactivity  and  uselessness,  that  there  will  be  oppor- 
tunity to  every  one  that  is  willing  to  use  his  talent  in  a 
humble,  obscure,  if  not  in  a  heroic  and  conspicuous  way.  We 
may,  if  we  choose,  occupy  ourselves  in  suggesting  possible 
meanings  for  the  money-changers  and  the  bank,2  such  as  that 
they  denote  in  our  day  the  machinery  of  religious  and  charit- 
able societies ; 8  only  we  must  remember  that  in  making  such 

law.  But  the  primary  reference  is  to  spiritual  gifts,  else  what  is  meant  by 
Kard  rijv  iliav  dvpaptvl 

1  '  The  Stewardship  of  Life '  (p.  52),  by  the  Rev.  James  Stirling,  an 
admirable  study  on  this  parable,  and  a  model  of  homiletic  treatment ; 
published  by  H odder  and  Stoughton,  1873. 

2  TpdmZav,  the  expression  in  Luke's  parable  of  the  pounds  (ch.  xix.  23). 
•  So  Alford  and  Godet.     The  author  of  '  The  Stewardship  of  Life,' 

already  quoted,  makes  the  bank  the  Christian  Church,  and  thinks  that  the 
idea  intended  is  that  the  slothful  servant  might  have  retired  from  the 
position  of  leader,  and  fallen  into  the  ranks  of  ordinary  membership. 
"We  must  bear  in  mind,"  he  says,  "that  he  occupied  a  representative 
place,  otherwise  we  are  thrown  into  the  perplexities  which  have  vexed 
interpreters  of  the  rpairi&Tat,  bankers.  Fearing  the  great  peril  that 
surrounded  the  teacher  and  leader,  he  failed  to  fall  into  the  ranks,  where 
ordinary  powers  mingle  with  the  currency  of  related  forces.  He  might 
have  retreated  to  a  secondary  place,  a  line  of  service  lower  in  reward  and 
less  exposed  to  danger,  without  breaking  loose  from  the  living  body  of 
Christ.  There  is  the  guild  of  medium  endowment  where  men  of  lowest 
grade  may  be  woven  into  muscle  running  into  higher  will.     The  talent 

P 


aiO  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  i. 

suggestions  we  are  not,  strictly  speaking,  interpreting  the 
parable,  but  merely  making  our  contribution  to  a  proof  that 
the  general  doctrine  of  the  parable  is  true,  viz.  that  oppor- 
tunities of  using  our  gifts  in  the  service  of  the  kingdom  will 
never  be  wanting.  This  is  the  truth  which  we  have  to  lay  to 
heart.  It  is  a  very  cheering  truth,  as  tending  to  show  that 
the  service  of  the  kingdom,  if  exacting,  is  also  reasonable  and 
considerate  ;  a  service  in  which  not  merely  the  heroic,  but  the 
timid  may  take  part.  If  any  one  ask,  How  shall  I  know 
where  to  find  the  bank  in  which  I  may  deposit  my  talent  ?  we 
may  use  for  reply  the  opinion  of  an  esteemed  commentator 
as  to  what  the  bank  in  the  parable  of  the  pounds  signifies, 
viz.  that  the  bank  is  Divine  omnipotence,  whereof  we  can  avail 
ourselves  by  prayer.  "  Of  him  who  has  not  worked  the  Lord 
will  demand,  Hast  thou  at  least  prayed  ? " 1  This  may  be  a 
fanciful  interpretation,  but  it  contains  a  valuable  hint  to  those 
who  are  perplexed  concerning  their  responsibilities.  Let  such 
pray  for  guidance,  and  the  Spirit  of  truth  will  show  them 
how  they  can  avoid  the  sin  and  the  doom  of  the  unprofitable 
servant. 

3.  We  come  now  to  the  most  specific  feature  of  the  parable, 
its  indirectly  conveyed  yet  most  definite  teaching  concerning 
the  principle  on  which  faithful  service  is  valued  in  the  Divine 
kingdom.  The  principle  is  that  equal  diligence  in  the  use  of 
unequal  endowment  shall  have  an  equal  value  set  upon  it. 
This  principle  we  infer  from  the  repetition  in  identical  terms 
of  the  encomium  pronounced  on  the  first  servant  in  address- 
ing the  second.  To  the  servant  who  received  five  talents  and 
gained  other  five  the  Lord  said,  "  Well  done,  good  and  faith- 
ful servant ;  thou  hast  been  faithful  over  a  few  things,  I  will 
place  thee  over  many  things  :  enter  thou  into  the  joy  of  thy 
Lord."     To  the  servant  who  received  two  talents  and  gained 

divorced  from  kindred  talents  is  unproductive;  the  associated  talents 
constitute  a  power ;  their  confederation  is  a  bank,  and  that  bank  is  the 
Christian  Church "  (p.  254).  This  is  certainly  the  most  definite  and 
suggestive  view  we  have  met  with.  Goebel's  view  is  somewhat  similar. 
Assuming  that  the  talents  refer  to  the  ministry  of  the  word,  he  makes 
delivery  of  the  talent  to  the  bankers  signify  retiring  from  the  ministry 
which  one  is  unable  to  occupy  with  advantage,  and  so  leaving  the  office 
to  more  competent  parties. 
1  Godet  on  Luke. 


CH.  viii. J  The   Talents.  2t* 

other  two  he  said  the  same  thing,  word  for  word.  What  now 
does  this  imply?  Does  it  signify  that  both  these,  servants 
are  in  future  to  be  put  on  a  level,  not  only  as  to  joy,  but  as 
to  power  and  position,  no  regard  being  henceforth  had  to  the 
difference  between  them  in  respect  of  natural  ability  ?  We 
might  fairly  enough  put  this  construction  on  the  expression 
"  I  will  place  thee  over  many  things."  But  it  has  to  be  con- 
sidered that  many  is  an  indefinite  term,  which  might  mean 
different  things  for  different  men  ;  and  that  the  idea  it  is 
intended  to  express  may  be  the  disproportion  between  the 
past  and  the  future  position  of  either  party,  rather  than  the 
equality  of  the  future  positions  of  both.  In  both  cases  it 
might  be  said,  "Thou  hast  been  faithful  over  a  few  things, 
henceforth  thou  shalt  have  an  opportunity  of  being  faithful 
over  many  things,"  though  the  many  things  of  the  future 
differed  in  the  same  proportion  as  the  few  things  of  the  past. 
Then,  seeing  that  a  part  of  the  reward  of  faithful  ministry 
here  is  opportunity  of  exercising  a  higher  ministry  hereafter, — 
for  such  seems  to  be  the  import  of  the  word  in  question,  the 
interests  of  the  Divine  kingdom  may  require  that  the  largest 
scope  for  service  should  be  afforded  to  him  who  has  shown 
greatest  capacity  for  service.  It  is  in  fact  on  this  very  ground 
that  the  talent  is  taken  from  the  unprofitable  servant  and 
given  to  him  that  has  ten  talents.  We  cannot,  therefore, 
press  the  view  that  many  must  be  held  to  denote  equality  of 
position  in  all  respects.  The  most  we  are  justified  in  saying 
is  that  the  language  is  so  chosen  as  to  throw  into  the  shade 
any  inequality  which  may  still  exist.  If  there  is  to  be 
inequality  in  the  future,  as  in  the  past,  the  speaker  has  no 
wish  to  emphasise  it ;  the  truth  to  which  he  desires  now  to 
give  exclusive  prominence  is  that  the  two  men  are  in  a 
spiritual  point  of  view  peers.  On  this  point  we  are  left  in  no 
doubt.  If  many  be  a  vague  word,  there  is  no  vagueness  or 
ambiguity  in  the  terms  of  commendation  bestowed  in 
common  on  the  two  servants.  Both  are  pronounced  to  have 
done  well,  and  both  receive  the  honourable  appellation  good 
and  faithful  servant.  There  can  be  no  mistake  as  to  what 
the  words  mean.  The  exclamation  cv  is  an  expression  of 
admiration.  The  master,  hearing  the  reports  of  his  two 
servants,  is  satisfied  that  they  have  done  their  utmost,  that 

*3 


ttia  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  l 

they  have  performed  an  amount  of  work  which  supplies  indis- 
putable evidence  of  steadfast  application,  unflagging  energy, 
and  enthusiastic  devotion,  and  he  generously  allows  his 
feelings  to  appear  in  the  utterance  of  that  expressive  mono- 
syllable. Though  not  a  word  more  had  been  said,  we  should 
have  known  what  to  think  of  the  two  servants.  But  we  are 
not  left  to  conjecture  the  character  of  the  men.  It  is  drawn 
for  us  by  two  significant  adjectives,  good  and  faithful  {aya.Q\ 
ecu  vurrk).  The  former  means  here,  as  in  the  parable  of  the 
Sower,  devoted,  enthusiastic,  single-hearted.  That  being  the 
import  of  the  one  epithet,  the  other  goes  along  with  it  as  a 
matter  of  course.  One  who  is  good,  ayaOos,  in  the  sense  oi 
putting  his  whole  heart  and  soul  into  his  work,  cannot  fail  to 
be  faithful,  7tiot6s,  for  the  very  secret  of  fidelity  is  single- 
heartedness,  and  the  sole  cause  of  unfaithfulness  is  a  divided 
heart.  No  fear  of  neglect  when  the  whole  heart  is  engaged. 
No  need  of  a  taskmaster's  eye  to  keep  the  devoted  man  at 
his  work.  Love  is  its  own  taskmaster.  Such  then  is  the 
common  character  of  the  two  men.  The  discerning  eye  of 
the  master  detects  the  precious  characteristics  in  both,  and  he 
pronounces  on  both  the  same  eulogium  in  identical  terms, 
with  equal  warmth  of  tone.  For  keen  and  sharp  as  he  seems 
to  be  in  looking  after  his  interest,  he  does  not  value  men 
merely  by  the  amount  of  money  they  bring  in.  It  is  no 
drawback  in  his  view  that  the  second  servant  brings  only  two 
talents  more,  having  received  only  two.  He  is  pleased  with 
him  not  less  than  with  the  other,  because  he  too  has  done 
what  he  could  ;  and  he  confers  on  him  the  badge  of  the 
legion  of  honour,  in  which  distinctions  of  rank  are  lost  sight 
of,  and  all  belong  to  the  one  order  of  Heroes.  The  judgment 
is  according  to  equity,  and  it  is  a  faithful  reflection  of  the 
judgment  of  Him  with  whom  the  citizens  of  the  Divine 
kingdom  have  to  do.  For  the  Lord  of  that  kingdom  judges 
not  men  after  the  vulgar  fashion  of  the  world,  by  the  mere 
magnitude  of  the  results  achieved.  He  has  regard  to  the 
diligence  and  devotion  displayed,  whether  the  results  be  great 
or  small,  and  He  will  pronounce  the  encomium  "  good  and 
faithful "  on  many  whom  the  world  has  regarded  as  compara- 
tive failures.  If  there  be  a  willing  mind,  it  is  accepted  by 
Him  according  to  that  a  man  hath,  and  not  according  to  that 


ch.  viii.]  The   Talents.  213 

he  hath  not.  The  widow's  mite  is  more  t.D  him  than  the 
large  gifts  of  the  wealthy,  because  it  is  the  offering  of  a 
devoted  spirit.  How  blessed  to  serve  a  Master  who  is  utterly 
superior  to  the  vulgar  worship  of  success  and  quantity  !  How 
blessed,  moreover,  to  serve  one  who  is  as  generous  as  He  is 
equitable !  For  that  any  servant  should  be  praised  as  both 
these  servants  are,  is  not  less  noteworthy  than  that  the  one  is 
praised  as  much  as  the  other.  In  this  respect  also  the  parable 
is  faithful  to  the  Spirit  of  God  and  of  Christ  as  exhibited  in 
the  Bible.  The  God  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  is  characteristic- 
ally generous  in  His  moral  estimates  of  His  servants.  He 
pronounces  perfect  and  good  men  in  whom  we  have  no  diffi- 
culty in  seeing  moral  defect.  The  epithets  are  freely  applied 
wherever  there  is  single-hearted  devotion  to  the  cause  of  God 
— to  a  Moses,  a  David,  a  Job,  a  Barnabas.  And  those  who 
serve  the  Lord  of  the  kingdom  ought  to  bear  this  truth  in 
mind.  It  is  well  that  we  think  humbly  of  ourselves,  but  it  is 
not  well  that  we  imagine  that  God  thinks  meanly  of  the  best 
endeavours  of  His  servants.  It  is  injurious  as  towards  Him, 
and  it  is  degrading  in  its  effect  on  our  own  character. 
Religion,  to  be  an  elevating  influence,  must  be  a  worship 
of  a  generous,  magnanimous  God.  Therefore,  while  in  the 
language  of  a  former  parable  we  say  of  ourselves  we  are 
unprofitable  servants,  so  disclaiming  all  self-righteous  pre- 
tensions to  merit,  let  us  remember  that  we  serve  One  who 
will  pronounce  on  every  single-hearted  worker,  be  his  position 
distinguished  or  obscure,  or  his  success  great  or  small,  the 
honourable  sentence  Well  done,  good  and  faithful  servant. 
What  the  joy  of  the  Lord  into  which  the  faithful  are  to  be 
admitted  may  be  we  can  only  dimly  guess ; l  in  what  the 
higher  ministries  of  eternity,  with  which  the  ministries  of 
time  are  to  be  rewarded,  consist,  and  under  what  conditions 
they  are  to  be  exercised,  we  can  but  feebly  attempt  to 
imagine ;  but  the  cordial  approval  of  the  Lord  is  something 
we  can  understand,  is  something  to  look  forward  to,  is  some- 
thing which  all  faithful  souls  shall  share,  and  share  alike. 

We  conclude  our  study  of  this  parable  by  drawing  a  contrast 
which  enhances  our  sense  of  its  beauty  and  wisdom.     In  the 

1  Goebel  makes  it  promotion  from  a  servile  condition  to  the  friendship 
of  the  Lord,  and  to  participation  in  his  position  of  possession  and  power. 


2*4  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  i. 

Talmud  are  found  parables  similar  to  this  one  and  to  that  of 
the  labourers  in  the  vineyard,  but  similar  only  as  a  dead, 
leafless,  barkless  tree  of  stunted  dimensions  is  to  a  great 
forest  tree  with  wide-spreading  branches  clothed  with  foliage. 
The  Rabbinical  parable  analogous  to  that  of  the  labourers  in 
the  vineyard  is  so  meagre  as  not  to  be  worth  quoting,  and  the 
motive  is  as  petty  as  its  conception  is  mean.  The  purpose  is 
to  praise  a  certain  Rabbi  who  made  as  much  progress  in  the 
law  in  twenty  years  as  others  could  in  a  hundred.1  What  an 
insignificant  aim  compared  with  that  of  Christ  to  illustrate 
the  truth  of  the  wide-reaching  moral  law  that  the  first  may 
be  last  and  the  last  first !  The  other  Rabbinical  parable 
analogous  to  that  of  the  talents  is  to  this  effect :  "  A  certain 
king  gave  a  deposit  to  each  of  his  three  servants.  The  first 
guarded  it  safely,  the  second  lost  it,  the  third  defiled  it  and 
committed  a  part  of  it  to  another  to  keep.  After  a  certain 
time  the  king  came  to  demand  the  deposit.  Him  who 
guarded  it  he  praised,  and  made  prefect  of  his  house.  Him 
who  lost  it  he  visited  with  capital  punishment,  and  ordered 
that  neither  his  name  nor  his  possessions  should  remain.  To 
the  third  the  king  said,  Retain  him  till  we  see  what  the  other 
will  do  in  whose  hands  he  left  a  part,  and  meantime  let  him 
not  depart  from  my  house.  If  he  has  treated  the  deposit 
rightly,  let  this  one  be  restored  to  liberty,  but  if  not  let  him 
be  punished."  The  observations  of  the  author  from  whom 
we  take  this  miserable  sample  of  parabolic  narratives  are  so 
just,  that  we  feel  constrained  to  quote  them  at  length. 
"What  more  frigid  than  this  parable?  what  more  insipid 
can  be  conceived  ?  Almost  the  same  things  are  related  as 
in  the  parable  of  Jesus ;  but  no  ornaments  are  added  which 
give  alacrity,  so  to  speak,  and  a  certain  vivid  movement  to 
the  whole.  Jesus  exhibits  a  picture ;  the  Talmudist  presents 
the  barest  outline — not  a  picture,  but  a  caricature.  And  the 
things  are  so  compared  as  to  injure  rather  than  assist  veri- 
similitude and  the  imagination.  A  king  gave  a  deposit  to  his 
three  servants.  For  what  reason  ?  No  reason  is  given ;  but 
Jesus  says  that  the  master  went  away  into  a  far  distant  region. 
And  what  sort  of  deposit  was  it,  and  how  great  ?  It  does 
not  appear.    Jesus  says  '  his  goods,'  and  accurately  indicates 

1  For  this  parable  vide  Lightfoot,  '  Horae  Hebraicae.' 


ch.  viii. j  The  Pounds.  215 

the  number  of  the  talents.  Had  the  king  of  the  Talmudist's 
parable  any  regard  to  the  disposition  or  ability  of  his  servants 
in  distributing  the  deposits?  None.  Our  king  gives  five  to 
one,  two  to  another,  to  a  third  one,  to  each  according  to  his 
several  ability.  With  what  view  was  the  deposit  given? 
That  they  might  keep  it.  Our  parable  says  that  they  might 
trade  with  it.  And  what  sentence  is  pronounced  on  the 
servants  ?  For  simply  keeping  the  deposit  the  first  is  praised 
and  promoted  ;  for  losing  it  the  second  is  put  to  death  ;  the 
treatment  of  the  third  is  made  dependent  on  the  behaviour  of 
another  man.  What  prodigality  in  rewarding,  what  cruelty 
in  punishing,  what  injustice  in  all!  Who  could  believe  such 
trifles,  and  what  influence  can  they  have  on  the  minds  and 
hearts  of  men  ?  "  x  Such  senilities  do  not  deserve  to  be  rescued 
from  the  dust  of  oblivion,  but  they  help  to  deepen  our  impres- 
sions of  the  literary  charm,  and,  what  is  more  important,  of 
the  profound  insight  into  moral  and  spiritual  truth,  displayed 
in  the  inimitable  parables  of  Jesus. 

THE    POUNDS;    OR,    UNEQUAL    DILIGENCE  IN    THE   USE   OF 
EQUAL    ENDOWMENTS    UNEQUALLY    REWARDED. 

A  certain  man  noble  born  went  into  afar  country  to  receive  for  himself  a 
kingdom,  and  to  return.  And  he  called  ten  servants  of  his,  and 
delivered  them  ten  pounds,  and  said  unto  them,  Occupy  till  I  come.% 
But  his  citizens  hated  him,  and  sent  an  ambassage  after  him,  saying, 
We  do  not  wish  this  person  to  reign  over  us.  And  it  came  to  past 
that  when  he  was  returned,  having  received  the  kingdom,  he  com- 
manded these  servants  to  be  called  unto  him,  to  whom  he  had  given  tht 
money,  that  he  might  know  what  they  had  made  by  trading.  And  the 
first  presented  himself ,  saying,  Lord,  thy  pound  hath  gained  ten  pounds. 
And  he  said  unto  him,  Well,  thou  good  servant,  because  thou  hast  been 
faithful  in  a  very  little,  have  thou  authority  over  ten  cities.  And  the 
second  came,  saying,  Thy  pound,  lord,  hath  gained  five  pounds.  And 
he  said  also  to  this  one,  Thou  also,  be  thou  over  five  cities.  And 
another  came,  saying,  Lord,  behold  thy  pound,  which  I  had,  laid  up  in 
a  napkin.  For  I  feared  thee,  because  thou  art  an  austere  man  :  thou 
takest  up  that  thou  layedst  not  down,  and  reapest  that  thou  didst  not 
sow.  Hesaith  to  him,  Out  of  thine  own  mouth  I  will  judge  thee, 
wicked  servant.     Thou  knewest  that  I  am  an  austere  man,  taking  up 

•  Limburg  Brouwer,  '  De  Parabolis  Jesu  Christi.' 

1  I\p*vpaTtv<}ci<jBt,  occupy  yourselves  in  business,  engage  in  trade. 


216  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  i. 

that  I  laid  not  down,  and  reaping  that  I  did  not  sow.  Why  then 
gavest  not  thou  my  money  into  the  bank,  and  I  on  coming  would  have 
required  it  with  usury  f  And  he  said  to  those  standing  by>  Take  from 
him  the  pound,  and  give  it  to  him  that  hath  ten  pounds.  (And  they 
said  unto  him,  Lord,  he  hath  ten  pounds.}  For  I  say  unto  you,  that 
unto  every  one  that  hath  shall  be  given,  and  from  him  that  hath  not, 
even  that  he  hath  shall  be  taken  away}  But  those  mine  enemies,  who 
would  not  that  1  should  reign  over  them,  bring  hither,  and  slay  them 
before  me.— Luke  xix.  12 — 27. 

Tins  parable  is  of  a  more  subjective  and  personal  character 
than  the  kindred  parable  of  the  talents.  It  is  obviously  but 
a  veiled  parabolic  history  of  the  present  and  future  fortunes 
of  the  Speaker,  and  so  possesses  all  the  pathetic  interest 
attaching  to  the  actual  humiliation  and  the  prospective  hopes 
of  the  Son  of  man.  He  is  the  noble-born  man  who  goes  to 
seek  a  kingdom  ;  but  is  hated  by  His  rightful  subjects,  and 
loved  by  only  a  faithful  few.  If  we  keep  this  fact  well 
in  mind  it  may  help  us  to  understand  the  peculiarities  of 
this  parable,  and  solve  difficulties  connected  with  it  which 
have  been  stumbling-blocks  to  many. 

1.  Foremost  among  the  peculiar  and  difficult  features  of 
the  parable  is  the  union  in  it  of  two  points  of  view,  which 
has  suggested,  not  only  to  negative  critics  like  Strauss,  but 
even  to  sober  and  believing  interpreters,  the  hypothesis  that, 
in  its  present  form,  it  consists  of  two  parables  originally 
distinct  blended  into  one — a  lost  parable  concerning  a  king 
and  his  subjects,  and  Matthew's  parable  of  the  talents 
transformed.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  hypothesis  pos- 
sesses considerable  plausibility.  For  the  parable  as  given 
by  Luke  combines  traits  so  diverse,  that  on  first  thoughts  one 
is  tempted  to  regard  them  as  incompatible.  The  main  actor 
appears  to  be  at  once  a  king  and  a  private  person,  a  noble- 
man and  a  tradesman  ;  the  persons  to  whom  he  is  related 
are  partly  subjects  and  partly  servants ;  the  sum  he  gives 
the  latter  seems  unworthy  of  a  king,  and  the  reward  he 
bestows  on  them,  while  such  as  becomes  a  king,  seems  inap- 
propriate to  the  character  they  have  hitherto  sustained,  which 

1  This  say'ng  is  found  also  in  Luke  viii.  18,  slightly  altered,  i  lx<* 
being  changed  into  0  Sokh  lxuv  >  tne  former  suits  material  possessions,  the 
latter  spiritual  possessions — such  as  understanding  of  Divine  truth,  in 
which  possession  in  the  case  supposed  is  only  imaginary. 


ch.  viil]  The  Pounds.  217 

is  that  of  traders.  In  presence  of  these  incongruities  it  appears 
excusable  to  ask,1  Can  such  heterogeneous  traits  have  been 
brought  together  by  Jesus,  all  whose  other  parabolic  repre- 
sentations are  characterised  by  unity,  harmony,  and  fit- 
ness ?  Yet  we  venture  to  think  that,  if  only  the  situation 
be  steadily  kept  in  view,  the  objections  to  the  originality  of 
the  parable,  which  appear  at  first  so  formidable,  may  to  a 
large  extent  be  removed. 

As  to  the  chief  difficulty,  that  respecting  the  double  point  of 
view,  the  fact  is  indisputable,  and  the  only  question  is  as  to  its 
psychological  truth.  This  question  resolves  itself  into  two: 
first,  is  it  likely  that  Jesus  would  attempt  in  one  parable  to 
express  His  relations  to  the  two  sections  of  Jewish  society, 
those  who  were  hostile  to  Him  and  those  who  were  attached 
to  Him  ?  and,  second,  is  it  likely  that  He  would  use  the  pre- 
cise figures  which  we  find  employed  in  the  parable  before 
us?  The  circumstances  amid  which  the  parable  appears  to 
have  been  spoken  go  far  to  answer  the  first  question  in  the 
affirmative.  Jesus  found  Himself  surrounded  by  a  mixed 
multitude  of  people  of  diverse  tendencies,  and  variously 
affected  towards  Himself.  On  one  side  were  men  of  Pharisaic 
sympathies,  to  whom  it  was  an  offence  that  He  had  gone  to 
be  a  guest  with  a  man  like  Zacchaeus,  who,  being  a  chief 
publican,  was  therefore  of  course  a  chief  sinner ;  on  the  other 
side  were  many  who  had  followed  him  from  Galilee,  full  of  the 
admiration  awakened  in  their  minds  by  His  ministry  in  that 
region,  and  confidently  believing  that  the  journey  towards 
Jerusalem  portended  the  near  approach  of  the  long  and 
ardently  expected  kingdom.  From  the  lips  of  the  one  class 
came  sullen  murmurs ;  in  the  countenances  of  the  other  were 
visible  the  traces  of  enthusiastic  and  romantic  expectation.  By 
both  classes  Jesus  was  utterly  misunderstood  ;  the  one  having 
no  comprehension  of,  or  sympathy  with,  the  yearning  love  for 
the  lost  which  was  the  key  to  his  conduct  towards  Zacchaeus, 
the  other  being  equally  ignorant  of  the  nature  and  future 
history  of  the  kingdom  whose  coming  they  eagerly  desired. 
He  was  alone  in  the  midst  of  that  great  crowd.  Here  was  a 
situation  fitted  to  evoke  the  parabolic  mood ;  for  it  was,  as  we 
pointed  out  in  our  introductory  observations,  when  made 
1  As  is  actually  done  by  Reuss  :  vide  his  *  Histoire  Evangelique.' 


si 8  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  i. 

conscious  of  isolation,  by  the  stupid  or  malignant  misappre- 
hensions of  men,  that  Jesus  spake  in  parables.  A  parab'e, 
therefore,  might  be  looked  for  in  the  circumstances.  But  if  a 
parable  is  to  be  the  outcome  of  the  situation,  we  expect  that 
it  will  be  a  faithful  reflection  of  the  situation ;  that  it  will 
show  on  the  one  hand  what  the  murmurs  of  the  disaffected 
will  come  to,  and  on  the  other  hand,  how  far  the  hopes  of 
friends  would  be  fulfilled  or  frustrated  by  coming  events.  We 
are  not  surprised,  therefore,  to  find  in  the  evangelic  record  a 
parable  said  to  have  been  spoken  at  this  time  of  the  two- 
sided  character  which  the  circumstances  called  for,  with  one 
side  turned  towards  foes,  another  side  towards  friends ;  warning 
the  one  of  a  fearful  doom  awaiting  them  if  they  persisted  in 
their  present  mind,  and  seeking  to  moderate  the  ignorant 
enthusiasm  of  the  other  by  a  sober  picture  of  the  future  that 
lay  before  them. 

But  the  question  remains,  Were  the  figures  employed  in 
this  two-sided  parable  appropriate  to  the  purpose  on  hand  ? 
Now  there  can  be  little  doubt  as  to  the  appropriateness  of  one 
of  the  tableaux,  that,  viz.  of  a  king  and  his  rebellious  subjects. 
That  picture  was  true  to  the  claims  of  Jesus  to  be  the  Mes- 
sianic King,  and  to  the  future  doom  of  Israel,  which  was 
indeed  to  be  destroyed  before  the  face  of  the  Lord.  It  was 
also  true,  as  has  been  pointed  out  by  several  commentators, 
to  the  external,  geographical  situation ;  for  the  parable  was 
spoken  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Jericho,  where  was  the  palace 
of  Archelaus,  who  had  done  the  very  thing  the  king  in  the 
parable  is  represented  as  doing,  viz.  gone  to  a  far  country,  to 
Rome,  to  seek  a  kingdom  ;  not  without  opposition  on  the 
part  of  the  Jews,  who,  tired  of  a  dynasty  of  adventurers, 
besought  the  emperor  rather  to  convert  their  country  into  a 
Roman  province.1  But  what  are  we  to  think  of  the  other 
picture,  that  of  a  man  noble  born,  and  expectant  of  a  throne, 
giving  to  his  servants  a  pound  apiece  to  trade  with  ?  Is  it 
suitable  to  the  dignity  of  a  man  of  royal  birth  and  hopes  to 
be  a  trader,  or  even  to  be  in  any  way  connected  with  trade  ? 
Now  here  we  might  plead  that  the  act  is  the  act  of  a  noble- 
man, not  cf  a  trader,  and  that  its  purpose  is  not  even  to  make 
the  servants  traders,  but  simply  to  test  their  fidelity.     But  it 

1  Josephus,  *  Antiq.,'  17,  II,  I. 


CH.  viii. J  The  Pounds.  210 

must  be  admitted  that  the  transaction  is  a  most  unusual  one 
for  a  nobleman,  suggestive  of  trade  rather  than  of  royalty,  and 
fitted  to  compromise  a  high-born  person's  dignity.  But  what 
then?  Was  not  this  very  incongruity  and  indignity  most 
suitable  to  Christ's  actual  position  ?  Was  not  His  life  on 
earth  filled  with  incongruities  between  His  intrinsic  dignity 
and  His  outward  lot  ?  Was  not  this  Nobleman  born  in  the 
home  of  a  village  carpenter  ?  Did  He  not  Himself  become  a 
carpenter  when  He  grew  to  the  years  of  manhood  ?  If  He 
had  to  endure  this  extreme  indignity,  He  might  well  bear  the 
minor  indignity  arising  out  of  trade  associations.  Those  who 
are  in  quest  of  crowns  must  not  be  too  fastidious,  for  they  are 
liable  to  encounter  strange  turns  of  fortune  on  their  way  to 
sovereignty. 

But  we  may  be  called  to  vindicate  the  appropriateness  of 
the  figure  with  reference  even  to  the  followers  of  Jesus.  It 
may  be  asked,  Might  not  their  position  have  been  indicated 
in  connection  with  the  same  figure  of  a  king  and  his  subjects 
by  representing  them  as  a  minority  of  loyal  subjects  who  had 
to  endure  oppression  at  the  hands  of  the  majority  during  the 
prince's  absence  ?  Such,  in  fact,  is  the  opinion  of  Ewald,  who 
sees  no  necessity  for  the  two  figures,  and  thinks  that  Luke 
mixed  the  two  together  for  no  other  reason  than  because  they 
both  referred  to  a  journeying  lord,  and  because  they  probably 
lay  side  by  side  in  his  sources.1  But  this  view,  in  the  first 
place,  assigns  a  more  subordinate  position  to  the  faithful 
portion  of  the  Jewish  people  than  seems  intended,  if  we  may 
judg^j  from  the  parable  in  which  the  place  of  prominence  is 
given  not  to  foes,  but  to  friends.  Moreover,  a  parable  con- 
structed as  Ewald  suggests,  while  teaching  disciples  one 
important  lesson  often  inculcated,  viz.  that  the  joys  of  the 
kingdom  could  be  reached  only  through  suffering,  would  havs 
failed  to  convey  another  lesson  not  less  important,  viz.  that 
the  way  to  the  kingdom  lay  through  a  life  of  strenuous  activity. 
For  this  purpose  Jesus  must  have  deemed  the  other  emblem 
not  unapt,  for  He  certainly  employed  it  once  (in  the  parable 
of  the  talents)  ;  and  if  once,  why  not  a  second  time  ?  In  the 
form  which  it  takes  in  the  parable  of  the  pounds  the  fiction  is 
peculiarly  well  fitted  to  dissipate  idle  dreams,  and  bring  tha 
1  'Die  drei  erst  en  Evangelien,'  pp.  419,  420. 


220         The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  i 

thought's  of  enthusiastic  disciples  down  from  the  cloud-land 
of  romance  to  the  ground  of  sober  reality.  In  this  connection 
the  paltriness  of  the  sum  given  to  the  servants  to  trade  with 
is  significant,  as  suggesting  that  what  lay  before  them  in  the 
immediate  future  was  a  life  not  merely  of  activity,  but  of 
obscure,  inglorious  activity,  amid  hard,  necessitous  circum- 
stances. By  this  parable  Christ  says  to  His  faithful  followers, 
Ye  are  to  be  rulers  eventually,  but  ye  must  be  traders  first, 
and  for  a  long  time,1  and  in  a  very  small  way — village  trades- 
men, itinerant  pedlars,  so  to  speak.  I  give  you  each  a  pound ; 
do  with  it  what  you  can,  use  it  as  opportunity  offers,  so  as  to 
earn  a  livelihood,  and  if  possible  make  a  fortune.  Hard  lines 
surely  to  have  to  live  upon  sach  a  pittance,  not  to  speak  of 
earning  money  for  the  master's  benefit !  Certainly  the  lot 
appointed  to  these  servants  is  one  involving  a  severe  disci- 
pline ;  and  the  end  contemplated  is  evidently  not  money- 
meking,  but  character-making — the  development  of  a  hardi- 
hood of  temper  and  a  firmness  of  will  which  can  be  turned  to 
good  account  when  the  obscure  traders  shall  have  been 
transformed  into  distinguished  rulers.  Strange  transformation 
doubtless,  yet  not  unexampled  even  in  our  own  land.  How 
many  in  this  great  commercial  country  have  risen  from  mean 
obscurity  and  utter  poverty  first  to  wealth,  and  then  to  posi- 
tions of  authority,  beginning  with  the  pound,  and  multiplying 
it  into  ten,  and  repeating  the  process  times  without  number ; 
and  not  always  bringing  to  the  high  position  ultimately 
reached  the  petty  vices  of  narrowness  and  hardness  which  are 
apt  to  be  contracted  in  the  process  of  building  up  a  fortune 
from  small  beginnings,  but  sometimes  exhibiting  a  truly 
princely  spirit  of  generous,  free-handed  benevolence ! 

2.  These  observations  have  already  in  part  disposed  of  a 
second  difficulty  that  has  been  found  in  this  parable,  viz. 
the  smallness  of  the  sum  given  to  each  of  his  servants  by  the 
nobleman,  which  seems  altogether  unworthy  of  a  man  in  his 
position.2     It  might  be  enough  to  say,  as  we  have  already  in 

1  Long  enough  to  allow  the  one  pounrl  to  be  multiplied  into  ten,  which 
implies  a  longer  period  than  the  dov')ling  of  the  capital  in  Matthew's 
parable. 

3  The  Attic  pound  was  in  value  somewhat  less  than  four  pounds  sterling, 
and  the  sixteenth  part  of  a   talent.     Kuinoel  refers  to  an  opinion  of 


ch.  viii.]  The  Pounds.  221 

effect  said,  by  way  of  reply  to  this  objection,  that  it  was  good 
tor  those  who  were  ultimately  to  be  promoted  to  positions  of 
authority  that  they  should  first  pass  through  a  discipline  ot 
severe  hardship.     But  another  explanation  may  be  offered. 
What  if  the  smallness  of  the  sum  given  be  due  to  the  necessi- 
tous condition  of  the  prince  himself?     Candidates  for  crowns, 
however  noble  by  birth,  are  apt  to  be  needy.     The  Nobleman 
of  our  parable  is  in  this  case.     He  has  the  highest  prospects, 
but    His   present   state   is   one   of    abject    humiliation   and 
poverty  ;  and  in  this  veiled  history  of  Himself  Jesus  takes  care 
that  the  picture  at  this  point  shall  be  in  keeping  with  reality. 
To  which  we  may  add,  that  in  any  case  the  very  smallness 
and  meanness  of  the  sum  given  to  the  servants  is  an  argument 
for  the  authenticity  of  the  parable.     No  one  but  Christ  would 
have  dared  to  name  so  small  a  sum,  appropriately  described 
in  the  parable  as  a  very  little.     He  alone  knew  how  to  value 
the  superlatively  small,  and  to  estimate  the  moral  worth  of 
those  who  have  been  faithful  in  that  which  is  least.     Christian 
tradition  would    magnify,  not   diminish,  the   amount.      We 
could  imagine  tradition  increasing  the  pound  to  a  talent;  we 
cannot  imagine  it  reducing  the  talent  to  a  pound. 

These  remarks,  we  trust,  suffice  to  show  the  natural  pro- 
priety of  the  parabolic  representation  at  this  point.  But 
what,  it  may  now  be  asked,  is  represented  by  the  pound  ? 
Various  answers  have  been  given  to  the  question.  The 
pound,  according  to  one,  is  the  common  grace  of  salvation 
bestowed  on  all  believers  ; l  according  to  a  second,  it  is  the 
mission  of  all  Christ's  disciples  to  advance  His  kingdom  ; J 
according  to  a  third,  it  is  the  word  which  Jesus  had  committed 
to  His  believing  followers,3  and  which  Paul  in  his  Epistles  to 
Timothy  speaks  of  as  the  trust,  the  noble  trust,4  and  which 

Michaelis  that  the  translator  of  this  parable  from  Hebrew  into  Greek  had 
confounded  the  Hebrew  word  for  portion  (Hi'?)  with  the  word  for  a  mina 
(n.30),  and  that  the  parable  spoke  not  of  ten  mince,  but  of  ten  portions. 
This  is  another  instance  of  learning  going  egregiously  astray  through 
want  of  insight  into  the  moral  import  of  the  parables.  Some  men  would 
be  better  expositors  if  they  had, less  learning,  as  they  might  then  tako 
more  pains  to  understand  ideas  asjdistinct  from  words. 
1  Godet.  2  Reuss. 

3  Hofmann,  '  Das  Evangelium  des  Lukas,'  p.  462. 

4  I  Tim.  Vi.  2  ;   20  Tim.  i.  14  :    >»  7rapa6i)Kti,  t)  »ca\i}  napaGr}K^. 


222         The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  t 

is  spoken  of  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  as  increasing  and 
multiplying.1  The  two  last  opinions  are  nearly  coincident, 
and  may  be  accepted  as  the  most  probable  interpretation. 
What  the  servants  of  the  nobleman  have  to  trade  with  and 
seek  to  multiply  is  the  word  of  the  kingdom.  This  associ- 
ation of  the  Divine  word  with  the  idea  of  trade  is  legitimated 
as  Scriptural  by  a  text  in  Paul's  Second  Epistle  to  the 
Corinthians,  rendered  in  our  English  version,  "  We  are  not  as 
many,  which  corrupt  the  word  of  God  "  ;  but  which  may  be 
more  exactly  translated,  We  are  not  as  many  who  deal  after 
the  fraudulent  manner  of  huckstering  merchants  with  the 
word  of  God.2 

3.  A  third  peculiarity  in  this  parable  is  the  equality  of 
endowment — all  the  servants  receiving  the  same  sum  ;  where- 
as in  the  kindred  parable  of  the  Talents  the  servants  receive 
each  a  different  sum.  This  feature  can  cause  no  difficulty 
when  it  is  considered  what  is  meant  by  the  pound ;  for  the 
word  of  Christ  and  the  commission  to  teach  it  was  one  and 
the  same  for  all.  But  without  seeking  aid  from  the  spiritual 
interpretation,  we  may  learn  from  the  parable  itself,  taken  in 
connection  with  the  circumstances  amid  which  it  was  spoken, 
the  rationale  of  this  equality.  The  time  of  trading  is  a  time 
of  preparation  for  the  higher  occupation  of  ruling,  when  they 
who  have  been  with  Christ  in  His  temptations  shall  receive 
kingdoms,8  and  sit  on  thrones.4  It  is  therefore  a  time  of 
trial,  when  it  has  to  be  ascertained  what  they  are  fit  for  in 
the  higher  ultimate  state,  to  which  the  lower  transitory  one 
is  a  stepping-stone.  But  the  best  way  to  ascertain  this  is  to 
put  all  on  a  level  to  begin  with,  and  leave  them  to  determine 
by  their  own  exertions  what  place  they  are  worthy  to  occupy.6 
In  a  race  which  is  to  settle  who  is  to  win  the  prize  for  greatest 
speed,  all  must  start  in  a  line,  and  at  the  same  moment. 

4.  This   brings  us  to  what   may  be  called  the  theoretic 

1  Acts  xii.  24. 

•  2  Cor.  ii.  17.  The  expressive  word  is  KavtiXtiovTic.  Paul  claims  to 
be  a  fair  trader,  who  deals  in  unadulterated  wares,  in  all  simplicity  and 
godly  sincerity.  In  the  Clementine  Homilies  Peter  calls  the  apostles  good 
merchants  of  the  true  religion,  as  if  offering  to  men's  choice  the  seeds  of 
Plants,  Horn.  ix.  8. 

•  Luk«  xx»-  28.  «  Matt.  xix.  28. 

•  So  Schleiermacher,  *  Uber  die  Schriften  des  Lukas.' 


ch.  viii. J  The  Pounds.  221 

feature  of  the  parable,  which,  though  it  comes  in  only  incident- 
ally, is  worthy  of  the  prominence  we  have  given  it  in  taking 
from  it  our  alternative  title.  The  servants  equally  endowed 
make  an  unequal  use  of  their  endowments,  and  unequal  use 
of  equal  endowment  is  unequally  rewarded.  He  who  with 
one  pound  gained  ten  is  made  ruler  over  ten  cities,  and  he 
who  with  the  same  sum  gained  only  five  pounds  is  made 
ruler  over  only  five  cities.  It  may  be  said  indeed  that  in 
bestowing  unequal  measures  of  power  upon  his  servants  the 
king  does  not  indicate  unequal  approbation,  but  simply 
adapts  their  appointments  to  the  ascertained  capacity  of  each, 
in  other  words,  that  this  parable  ends  where  the  parable  of 
the  Talents  begins,  viz.  by  treating  men  according  to  their 
several  ability.1  But  this  view,  though  in  the  abstract 
legitimate,  is  excluded  by  another  feature  in  the  parable, 
which  plainly  shows  that  what  had  been  ascertained  by 
the  time  of  probation  was  not  the  varied  ability  of  the 
servants,  but  the  unequal  measure  of  their  zeal  and  industry 
and  force  of  will.  What  we  allude  to  is  the  withholding  of 
all  expressions  of  praise  in  addressing  the  second  servant. 
He  is  not  said  to  have  done  well,  and  he  is  not  called  good. 
Let  it  not  be  supposed  that  this  happens  as  it  were  per 
incuriam.  Christ  was  not  likely  to  commit  the  mistake  of 
withholding  approbation  when  it  was  due.  He  was  habitually 
careful  in  His  use  of  moral  epithets.  He  was  characteristic- 
ally generous  in  bestowing  them  when  they  were  deserved ; 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  He  would  not  only  not  ascribe  the 
quality  of  goodness  to  others  who  possessed  it  not,  but  He 
would  not  even  allow  it  to  be  ascribed  to  Himself  by  persons 
who  were  not  in  a  position  to  speak  with  intelligence  and 
conviction,  and  who  meant  merely  to  pay  a  flattering  com- 
pliment. Why  callest  thou  Me  good  ?  He  said  sternly  to 
the  young  ruler  who  inquired  concerning  eternal  life ;  and 
from  the  second  servant  in  this  parable  He  withholds  the 
epithet  not  inadvertently,  but  deliberately,  because  in  His 
judgment  he  had  not  earned  it.  And  what  does  this  imply? 
That  the  second  servant  had  not  done  all  that  it  was  possible 

1  So  in  effect  Weiss,  who  remarks  that  the  Ilia  ivvafuQ  in  Luke  comes 
into  view  in  the  use  of  the  common  gift,  while  in  Matthew  it  is  kept  in 
view  in  the  distribution  :  *  Das  Matthaus-Evangelium.' 


224  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  i. 

for  him  to  do ;  that  he  had  been  lacking  in  devotion,  perse- 
verance, steadfastness ;  that  his  whole  heart  had  not  been  in 
the  business  he  had  on  hand ;  that  he  had  not  been  a  hero 
in  the  struggle  of  life ;  that  he  had  acquitted  himself  only 
fairly,  respectably,  not  nobly.  That  the  first  servant  had 
possessed  all  the  virtues  opposed  to  these  defects  is  signified 
by  the  title  ayaOos  ascribed  to  him ;  and  that  the  second 
servant  was  chargeable  with  all  these  defects  is  not  less 
surely  signified  by  the  withholding  of  the  title  from  him. 
Therefore  we  may  legitimately  represent  this  parable  as 
teaching  that  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  unequal  zeal  in  the 
use  of  equal  ability  will  be  unequally  rewarded ;  a  principle 
just  in  itself,  and,  when  added  to  the  principles  set  forth  in 
the  two  other  parables  previously  considered,  completing  the 
doctrine  of  Christ  on  the  great  subject  of  the  relation  between 
work  and  wages.1 

5.  It  remains  to  advert  in  a  sentence  or  two  to  yet  another 
feature  in  this  parable,  viz.  that  in  its  doctrine  of  rewards  and 
punishments  it  seems  to  have  in  view  chiefly  if  not  exclusively 
the  temporal  aspect.  The  rebellious  subjects  are  slain  before 
the  eyes  of  the  king,  the  allusion  being  obviously  to  the  ruin 
which,  a  generation  later,  overtook  the  Jewish  people;  the 
faithful  are  rewarded  with  appointments  to  rule  over  cities, 
no  mention  being  made  of  the  joy  of  the  Lord  spoken  of  in 
Matthew's  parable  ;  and  the  unprofitable  servant  is  punished 
simply  by  being  deprived  of  an  endowment  which  he  had  not 
known  how  to  use,  but  had  tied  up  in  a  napkin,  whose  proper 
use  was  to  wipe  the  sweat  from  his  brow.2  We  read  not  here 
of  the  outer  darkness  where  is  weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth. 

1  The  view  we  take  as  to  the  didactic  import  of  the  two  parables  of  the 
Talents  and  the  Pounds  is  advocated  among  others  by  Dr.  Gray,  author 
of  a  work  entitled  '  A  Delineation  of  the  Parables,'  published  about  the 
beginning  of  this  century.  He  says,  "  In  the  one  parable  we  see  the  two 
industrious  servants  are  represented  as  equally  diligent  in  their  respective 
trusts,  and  therefore  were  entitled  to  the  same  commendation  and  reward. 
But  in  the  other,  where  a  greater  degree  of  industry  under  the  same 
advantages  is  supposed  to  produce  greater  success,  we  see  the  reward 
assigned  to  each  bears  a  proportionable  respect  to  his  diligence  and  im- 
provement"    Gray  was  parish  minister  of  Abernethy  in  Perthshire. 

*  VovSdpiov  is  the  Latin  word  sudarium  imported  into  the  language  of 
the  East.  The  unprofitable  servant  wraps  his  money  this  time  in  a 
napkin,  instead  of  burying  it  in  the  earth,  because  it  is  a  small  sum. 


ch.  vinj  The  Pounds.  225 

In  all  these  respects  the  parable  is  obviously  political  rathef 
than  religious  ;  and  it  is  only  a  perverse  ingenuity  which  seeks 
to  find  out  what  its  expressions  mean  in  reference  to  eternity, 
as  when  it  is  said  that  the  ten  or  five  cities  represent  beings 
who  are  yet  in  an  inferior  moral  position,  but  whom  the  faithful 
in  glory  have  a  mission  to  elevate  to  their  destination  ;  or  the 
words,  To  him  that  hath  shall  be  given,  are  made  to  bear  the 
meaning,  Such  and  such  a  pagan  people,  which  that  young 
Christian  might  have  evangelised,  but  did  not,  remaining  here 
below  the  slave  of  ease,  will  be  intrusted  in  the  future  economy 
to  the  devoted  missionary  who  had  here  used  all  his  powers 
in  the  service  of  Jesus.1  As  to  what  that  law  may  mean  in 
reference  to  the  world  to  come  we  prefer  to  confess  our  ignor- 
ance. It  is  a  law  as  mysterious  as  it  is  certain  in  its  operation 
even  in  this  world.  The  remark  of  the  bystanders, "  Lord,  he 
hath  ten  pounds,"  was  a  very  natural  expression  of  surprise 
that  to  him  who  had  so  much  already  more  should  still  be 
given.  Who  has  not  in  his  heart  made  the  same  remark  many 
a  time !  The  law  on  both  sides  of  its  operation  seems  partial, 
unjust,  inhuman.  But  it  is  idle  to  complain  of  the  laws  of  the 
moral  universe.  We  shall  be  better  employed  in  endeavouring 
to  accommodate  ourselves  to  the  conditions  of  our  existence 
as  responsible  beings,  and  striving  so  to  live  that  they  shall  be 
for  us,  not  against  us.  Let  us  study  to  be  faithful  in  that 
which  is  least,  and  then  we  also  may  have  an  opportunity 
granted  us  of  showing  fidelity  on  the  great  scale,  and  shall  be 
prepared  to  make  the  most  of  such  an  opportunity  when  it 
comes. 

}  SoGodet. 


BOOK  IL 
THE   PARABLES   OF   GRACE. 


INTRODUCTORY, 


In  an  early  chapter  of  his  Gospel  Luke  tells  of  a  discourse 
delivered  by  Jesus  in  the  synagogue  of  Nazareth  on  the 
Acceptable  Year  of  the  Lord,  and  records  that  His  hearers 
wondered  at  the  gracious  words  which  proceeded  out  of  His 
mouth.1  That  scene  was  thoroughly  congenial  to  the  taste 
of  the  Pauline  Evangelist,  and  he  took  it  out  of  its  historical 
connection  and  put  it  in  the  fore-front  of  his  narrative  of  our 
Lord's  public  ministry,  assigning  to  it  the  same  place  in  his 
Gospel  which  is  occupied  by  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  in 
Matthew's,  that  he  might  introduce  Christ  to  his  readers  at 
the  very  outset  as  the  preacher  of  glad  tidings.  Not  less 
congenial  to  his  liking  was  the  phrase  he  employs  to  describe 
the  character  of  the  Nazareth  discourse:  Words  of  Grace, 
\6yoi  Ttjs  \dpiT09.  One  recommendation  of  it  doubtless  was 
that  it  suggested  a  connection  between  the  doctrine  of  Christ 
and  the  doctrine  of  Paul,  in  which  the  idea  of  grace  occupies 
a  very  prominent  place.  But  it  was,  apart  from  that  con- 
sideration, a  well-chosen  title  or  motto.  For  though  the 
word  grace,  x^Pty»  ls  °f  very  rar^  occurrence  in  the  Gospels, 
the  thing  signified  is  manifest  in  every  page :  Jesus  as  He 
appeared  among  men  in  His  public  ministry  was  indeed,  as 
the  fourth  evangelist  says,  full  of  grace.  And  of  all  the 
evangelists  Luke  has  done  most  to  justify  the  representation 
by  the  account  he  has  given  of  our  Lord's  teaching ;  for 
many  words  of  Jesus  that  are  peculiarly  and  emphatically 
words  of  grace  have  been  reported  by  him  alone.  Among 
the  words  of  grace  spoken  by  Jesus  a  prominent  place  belongs 
to  the  group  of  parables  now  to  engage  our  attention,  much 

1  Luke  iv.  16 — 30. 


230  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,   [book  il 

the  larger  number  of  which  are  peculiar  to  Luke,  among  that 
number  being  some  which  are  the  very  poetry  and  quintes- 
sence of  the  gospel  of  pardon  and  of  Divine  love ;  very 
specially  those  to  be  studied  in  the  next  two  chapters,  to 
which  may  be  justly  given  by  way  of  eminence  the  title  of 
the  Parables  of  Grace.1 

A  peculiar  charm  surrounds  the  doctrine  of  grace  as  taught 
by  Jesus,  not  in  dogmatic  formulae  defended  by  controversial 
dialectics  as  in  Paulinism,  but  in  poetic  utterances  of  exquisite 
simplicity  and  beauty,  yet  infinitely  suggestive.  The  doctrine 
is  of  course  less  developed,  less  dogmatically  complete,  but 
just  on  that  account  the  more  attractive.  To  the  gospel  of 
grace  as  preached  by  Jesus  belongs  the  charm  of  the  dawn, 
which  is  a  delight  to  all  mankind,  which  our  Aryan  ances- 
tors in  their  childish  wonder  even  went  the  length  of  worship- 
ping under  the  name  of  Ushas.  Christ's  preaching  was  the 
dawn  of  the  era  of  grace,  when  the  Uayspring  from  on  high 
visited  this  world,  to  give  light  to  them  that  sit  in  darkness 
and  in  the  shadow  of  death,  to  guide  our  feet  into  the  way 
of  peace.2  Let  us  turn  our  eyes  towards  the  mild  sweet 
light  of  this  morning  of  our  eternal  hope  with  awe-struck 
humble  gratitude. 

In  many  of  the  parables  belonging  to  the  class  now  to  be 
considered  there  is  a  striking  union  of  the  true,  the  good,  and 
the  beautiful.  Jesus  appears  in  them  the  Artist,  the  Sage, 
the  Philanthropist,  and  the  Hero,  all  in  one.  From  the 
parables  of  grace  we  may  learn  the  genius  of  genuine  evan- 
gelic piety,  the  beau  ideal  of  a  truly  evangelic  ministry.  The 
term  '  evangelical '  ought  to  signify  a  Christ-like  spirit  of  love 
for  the  '  lost,'  combined  with  a  wide,  genial  culture,  and  a 
manly  type  of  character.  In  actual  use  the  term  sometimes 
denotes  something  widely  different — a  type  of  religion  which 
combines  strenuous  advocacy  of  the  doctrines  of  grace  with 
an  attitude  of  hostility  or  at  least  of  indifference  to  culture, 
and  with  an  ethical  character  which,  in  respect  of  scrupulosity, 
censoriousness,  and  narrowness  of  sympathy,  bears  a  painfully 

*  Godet  gives  this  title  to  the  three  parables  in  Luke  xv.,  but  the  parable 
of  the  Two  Debtors  may  well  be  classed  along  with  these.  The  four 
form  a  distinct  group  connected  together  by  one  aim,  as  shall  appeat 
forthwith.  *  Luke  L  78,  79. 


book  ii.]  Introductory.  231 

close  resemblance  to  Pharisaism  as  we   know  it   from   the 
Gospels.     Going  to  the  fountain-head  of  evangelic  life  we 
discover  that  this  unattractive  combination  is  not  necessary, 
but  only  an  accident ;  due  probably  to  the  circumstance  that 
the  evangelical  faith  united  to  such  heterogeneous  attributes 
has  been  received  not  as  a  revelation  from  heaven,  but  by 
tradition  from  a  former  generation.     The  parables  of  grace 
are  in  their  substance  intensely  evangelical.     But  in  the  form 
of  thought  homage   is  done  to  aesthetics ;  taste,  culture,  art 
receives  due  recognition,   not  perhaps  intentional  but  only 
instinctive,  but   for  that   very   reason   the   more   effectually 
vindicating  for  these  things  a  place  of  their  own.     Whether 
from  deliberate  design  or  from  the  unconscious  action  of  a 
happy  genius  matters  not,  the  fact  is  that  in  these  parables 
we  find   displayed  a   literary  taste  and  grace  unsurpassed, 
inimitable.     Then,  when   we   consider   the  occasions  which 
called   forth   many  of  these   parables,   we   see  how   utterly 
antagonistic  to  Pharisaism  the  true  evangelic  spirit  is.     The 
most  remarkable  were  spoken  in  self-defence — in  defence  of 
a  habitual   disregard   of  superstitious  scruples,   and   of   an 
unconventional  charity  and  width  of  sympathy  most  offensive 
to  the  Pharisaic  mind ;  were,  in  short,  Christ's  apology  for  a 
way  of  life   utterly   anti-Pharisaical;    holy,  but   not   severe 
towards  the  unholy ;  pure,  but  not  puritanic ;  conscientious, 
but  unfettered  by  the  commandments  of  men ;    wearing  a 
noble  aspect   of  liberty,  and   breadth,  and   power.     This  is 
only  what  we  should  expect  from  One  in  whom  dwelt  Divine 
charity  in    all    its    fulness.     For    charity  brings    liberty   to 
the  conscience,  and   largeness  to  the  heart,  and  light  and 
beauty  to  the  mind  ;    banishes  feebleness,  narrowness,  and 
fear,  and   endows    the   character    with    health,   vigour,   and 
courage. 

The  Parables  of  Grace  may  be  distributed  into  groups  as 
follows : 

1.  The  Two  Debtors,  and  the  Lost  Sheep,  the  Lost  Coin, 
and  the  Lost  Son— four,  constituting  Christ's  apology  for 
loving  sinners. 

2.  The  Children  of  the  Bride-chamber  (including  the  New 
Patch  on  an  Old  Garment,  and  New  Wine  in  Old  Skins)  being 
Christ's  apology  for  the  joy  of  disciples. 


232  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,  [book  ii 

3.  The  Lowest  Seats  at  Feasts,  and  the  Pharisee  and  the 
Publican ;  or  the  kingdom  of  God  for  the  humble. 

4.  The  Great  Supper,  or  the  kingdom  for  the  hungry  and 
the  needy. 

5.  The  Good  Samaritan,  or  charity  the  true  sanctity. 

6.  The  Unrighteous  Steward,  or  that  charity  covers  a 
multitude  of  sins. 

7.  The  Rich  Man  and  Lazarus,  and  the  Unmerciful  Servant, 
or  implacability  and  inhumanity  the  unpardonable  sins. 
Twelve  in  all. 

The  first  group  being  the  evangelic  parables  par  excellence, 
some  general  observations  on  them  may  here  be  added  as  a 
contribution  towards  the  illustration  of  the  genius  of  the  whole 
class.  These  four  parables,  as  already  hinted,  are  connected 
together  by  a  common  aim,  that  being  to  furnish  an  answer 
to  those  who  found  fault  with  Jesus  for  associating  with  the 
disreputable  classes  of  Jewish  society.  They  are  Christ's 
apology  for  loving  sinners,  and  only  when  this  fact  is  steadily 
kept  in  view  can  they  be  fully  understood  and  successfully 
expounded.  It  is  somewhat  difficult  for  us  to  keep  the  fact 
in  view,  so  completely  has  Christian  civilization  advanced 
beyond  the  stage  at  which  such  conduct  as  was  found  fault 
with  in  Jesus  could  be  regarded  as  needing  defence.  We  can 
hardly  realise  that  the  Founder  of  our  faith  was  seriously  put 
upon  His  defence  for  an  "enthusiasm  of  humanity "  which 
we  now  regard  as  His  glory,  and  as  the  most  effective 
evidence  of  the  Divinity  of  His  doctrine.  And  when  we  do 
by  an  effort  succeed  in  realising  it,  we  are  apt  to  think  that 
the  fault-finders  were  a  peculiarly  barbarous  and  heartless 
class  of  men.  But  in  truth  it  was  perfectly  natural  that  they 
should  find  fault ;  they  had  a  perfectly  good  conscience  in 
doing  so  ;  they  thought  they  did  well  to  be  angry  with  Jesus, 
and  with  the  ideas  then  current  in  the  world  they  could 
hardly  do  otherwise.  For  the  charity  of  Jesus  was  a  new 
thing  under  the  sun,  alien  not  only  to  the  spirit  of  Pharisaism, 
but  also  to  the  aristocratic  genius  of  ethnic  religion.  Hence 
Christ's  love  for  the  lost  appeared  a  fault  quite  as  much  to 
the  heathen  philosopher  Celsus  as  to  the  holy  men  of  Judaea. 
In  his  attack  on  Christianity  he  alluded  to  it  as  a  character- 
istic fact  that  the  chosen  companions  of  Jesus  were  disre- 


book  ii.]  Introductory.  233 

putable  persons,  publicans  and  sailors,  and  he  represented 
the  preachers  of  the  gospel  in  his  own  day  as  saying  in 
effect :  Let  no  one  who  is  wise  or  educated  approach  ;  but  if 
any  one  is  illiterate,  foolish,  or  untaught,  a  babe  in  knowledge, 
he  may  confidently  come  to  us ;  and  as  aiming  at  making 
converts  of  the  silly  and  senseless,  of  slaves,  women,  and 
children.  In  honest  amazement  and  disgust  he  asked : 
"  Whence  this  preference  for  the  sinful  ? "  contrasting  with 
this  strange  procedure  of  Christians  the  more  rational  practice 
of  Pagans  in  inviting  to  initiation  into  their  mysteries  only 
men  of  pure  and  exemplary  lives.  "  While  Christians  address 
to  men  this  call :  Whosoever  is  a  sinner,  whosoever  is  unwise, 
whosoever  is  a  babe,  in  short,  whosoever  is  a  KaKobaifxiav,  him 
the  kingdom  of  God  will  receive — we,  calling  men  to  parti- 
cipation in  our  sacred  rites,  say :  Whoso  has  pure  hands  and 
is  wise  of  speech,  whoso  is  clean  from  all  impiety,  whoso  has 
a  conscience  void  of  offence,  whoso  liveth  a  just  life,  let  him 
come  hither." l  If  Origen  had  to  defend  Christianity  against 
such  a  charge  brought  by  a  philosopher  of  the  second 
Christian  century,  we  cannot  wonder  that  Christ  had  to  meet 
a  similar  charge  as  advanced  by  his  Jewish  contemporaries, 
who  deemed  it  a  positive  religious  duty  to  keep  themselves 
aloof  from  the  unholy,  in  accordance  with  the  negative  notion 
of  holiness  which  not  unnaturally  had  been  bred  in  their 
minds  by  the  election  and  the  whole  past  history  of  Israel, 
and  the  peculiar  character  of  her  religious  institutions.  All 
new  things  have  to  fight  for  their  right  to  existence,  and 
there  never  was  a  greater  novelty,  never  a  more  audacious 
innovation,  than  the  charity  of  Jesus ;  and  therefore  it  was, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  violently  and  repeatedly  assailed,  and 
the  question  often  asked :  Why  eatest  thou,  why  consortest 
thou,  with  publicans  and  sinners  ? 

Jesus  was  ready  with  His  answer ;  and  as  the  incapacity 
of  those  who  interrogated  Him  to  understand  His  conduct 
was  great  and  their  ignorance  deep,  the  answer  he  gave  was 
ample,  and  his  apology  varied.  It  is  to  be  gathered  from  the 
four  parables  of  the  first  group,  and  from  another  word  which 
may  fee  called  a  parable-germ,  a  proverbial  saying  needing 
only  to  be  expanded  into   a  history  to  become  a  parable ; 

1  Origen,  '  Contra  Celsum,'  lib.  i.,  c.  62. 


a34  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  ii. 

that,  viz.,  spoken  at  Matthew's  feast,  in  reply  to  those  who 
expressed  surprise  at  Jesus  being  a  guest  among  a  gathering 
of  publicans  :  They  that  be  whole  need  not  a  physician,  but 
they  that  are  sick} 

The  apology  embraces  three  great  ideas,  which  in  general 
terms  may  be  expressed  thus : 

i.  Christianity  is  a  remedial  system,  and  therefore  it  busies 
itself  with  those  who  most  manifestly  need  remedy. 

2.  It  has  faith  in  the  redeemableness  of  human  beings 
however  sunk  in  sin  and  misery  ;  nay,  it  believes  in  the 
possibility  of  extremes  meeting,  of  the  last  becoming  first, 
of  the  greatest  sinner  becoming  the  greatest  saint. 

3.  It  thinks  the  meanest  and  lowest  of  mankind  worth 
saving,  has  such  joy  in  saving  the  lost,  that  it  can  take 
delight  in  saving  one  sinner  repenting,  not  a  picked  sample, 
but  any  one  taken  at  random.  In  other  words,  man  at  his  worst 
is  a  beingof  priceless  worth  in  God's  sight,  as  a  moral  personality. 

The  first  of  these  thoughts  was  the  truth  hinted  at  by 
Jesus  in  the  word  spoken  in  the  house  of  Matthew,  under  the 
form  of  a  personal  apology.  The  point  of  the  saying  lies  in 
the  suggested  comparison  of  Himself  to  a  physician.  That 
comparison  accepted,  all  the  rest  follows  as  a  matter  of 
course.  No  one  wonders  at  a  physician  visiting  most  fre- 
quently the  houses  of  those  who  are  afflicted  with  the  gravest 
maladies.  In  doing  so  he  is  only  showing  a  becoming 
enthusiasm  in  his  profession,  an  enthusiasm  which  all  regard 
as  a  virtue,  the  want  of  which  would  cause  him  to  be  lightly 
esteemed  as  one  whose  heart  was  not  in  his  vocation. 
Neither  is  any  one  surprised  that  a  physician,  though  refined 
in  his  personal  tastes  and  habits,  is  not  nice  and  dainty  in 
the  pursuit  of  his  calling,  avoiding  with  disgust  loathsome 
diseases ;  but  goes  without  hesitation  wherever  duty  calls, 
though  every  sense  should  be  offended.  All  that  is  in  the  spirit 
of  his  profession.  He  is  a  physician,  and  therefore  cannot 
afford  to  be  fastidious.  Even  so  would  men  have  thought 
of  Christ's  behaviour,  had  it  occurred  to  them  to  regard 
Him  as  a  Spiritual  Physician,  and  the  religion  He  came 
to  establish  as   before  all   things   redemptive.     A  spiritual 

Matt.  ix.  12. 


book  il]  Introductory,  235 

physician  must  visit  those  who  are  spiritually  diseased,  and 
a  religion  of  redemption  cannot  consistently  be  exclusive 
and  dainty,  but  must  address  itself  to  the  million,  and  be 
ready  to  lay  its  healing  hand  even  on  such  as  are  afflicted 
with  the  most  repulsive  moral  maladies.  Kad  Christ  come 
to  be  a  mere  rabbi  or  teacher  of  the  law,  then  He  might 
consistently  have  said  of  the  ignorant  multitude :  This  people 
that  know  not  the  law  are  accursed.  Had  He  come  as  a 
philosopher,  He  might  appropriately  enough  have  addressed 
Himself  exclusively  to  the  cultivated,  disregarding  the 
illiterate  vulgar.  Had  He  come  offering  to  initiate  men 
into  a  system  of  religious  mysteries,  then  He  might  have 
confined  His  invitations  to  the  privileged  few,  neglecting  the 
many  as  unworthy  of  initiation,  as  Celsus  thought  He  and 
His  followers  should  have  done.  But  He  came  not  as  a 
rabbi,  or  a  philosopher,  or  a  mystagogue,  but  as  a  Healer 
of  human  souls  ;  and  that  was  an  occupation  with  which  the 
world  was  unfamiliar,  and  hence  the  need  for  those  apologetic 
proverbs  and  parables. 

The  parables  of  the  Two  Debtors  spoken  at  another  feast, 
taken  along  with  its  application,  has  for  its  didactic  kernel 
the  second  of  the  three  foregoing  truths.  That  Jesus,  while 
ostensibly  defending  the  woman  against  the  evil  thoughts 
of  His  host,  was  in  reality  on  His  own  defence  on  that 
occasion  also,  for  the  same  offence  of  loving  the  sinful,  there 
can  be  no  reasonable  doubt.  The  evangelist  evidently  intro- 
duces the  story  in  the  place  where  it  occurs  to  illustrate  by 
what  kind  of  conduct  He  earned  for  Himself  the  sneering 
epithet,  or  nickname,  "the  friend  of  publicans  and  sinners,"1 
to  which  he  alludes  in  the  immediately  preceding  context, 
and  how  He  justified  that  conduct  when  it  was  called  in 
question.  And  the  parable  must  be  studied  from  this  point 
of  view,  and  when  so  studied  it  will  be  found  to  contain  a 
most  important  contribution  to  the  apologetic  of  redeeming 
love.  Its  drift  is  to  teach  that  vast  capacities  for  disciple- 
ship  are  latent  in  the  depraved  and  despised  classes  of  society, 
that  thence  in  truth  may  be  obtained  the  best  citizens  for  the 
Divine  kingdom.     A  very  good  reason  for  attending  to  these 

'  Luke  vii.  34. 


236  The  Parabolic  Teaching  oj  Christ,    [book  h, 

classes,  if  true ;  and  the  virtue  of  the  parable  is  to  show  how 
easily  it  may  be  true ;  for  what  more  likely  than  that  those 
who  are  forgiven  most  should  love  most  ? 

The  three  parables  concerning  the  joy  of  finding  things 
or  persons  lost  complete  the  apology  of  Jesus  for  loving 
the  sinful,  by  emphasising  the  truth  that  the  lowest  of  men 
are  worth  saving.  After  you  have  said  the  worst  of  these 
u  publicans  and  sinners,"  whom  all  morally-respectable  persons 
shun,  what  does  it  amount  to  ?  Simply  to  this,  that  they 
are  lost ;  lost  to  God,  to  righteousness,  to  wisdom,  to  all  the 
chief  ends  and  uses  of  life.  But  if  so,  what  a  joy  if  they 
could  be  found  !  All  men  have  joy  in  finding  things  lost ; 
shepherds  in  finding  lost  sheep,  housewives  in  finding  lost 
pieces  of  money,  fathers  in  finding  lost  sons :  why  then 
should  there  not  be  joy  also  in  finding  morally-lost  men  ? 
It  is  the  desire  of  such  joy  that  moves  me  to  mix  with  the 
depraved  and  the  disreputable.  Surely  a  very  good  reason, 
if  there  be  a  tolerable  hope  of  success  in  the  quest. 

These  preliminary  hints  will  prepare  us  for  studying  sym- 
pathetically the  whole  class  of  parables  which  are  next  to 
engage  our  attention,  and  specially  the  four  which  come  first 


CHAPTER  L 

i 

THE  TWO  DEBTORSf 
OR,  MUCH  FORGIVENESS,  MUCH  LOVE. 

THE  paraole  is  so  deeply  embedded  in  its  historical  matrix 
that  we  must  take  as  our  text  the  whole  narrative  as  it  stands 
in  Luke's  Gospel.1     It  is  as  follows  :— 

And  one  of  the  Pharisees  desired  Hint  that  He  would  eat  with  him.  And 
He  went  into  the  house  of  the  Pharisee,  and  sat  down  a  to  meat.  And, 
behold,  a  woman  who  was  in  the  city,  a  sinner,  when  she  knew  that 
Jesus  sat  at  meat  in  the  Pharisee's  house,  brought  an  alabaster  vase  of 
ointment,  and  standing  at  His  feet  behind  Him  weeping,  began  to  wet 
His  feet  with  her  tears,  and  did  wipe  them  with  the  hair  of  her  head, 
and  ardently  kissed3  His  feet,  and  anointed  them  with  the  ointment. 
Now  when  the  Pharisee  which  had  bidden  Him  saw  it,  he  spake  with' 
in  himself,  saying  :  This  man,  if  he  were  a  prophet,  would  have  known 
who  and  what  manner  of  woman  this  is  that  toucheth  Him,  that  she 
is  a  sinner.  And  Jesus  answering  said  unto  him  :  Simon,  I  have 
somewhat  to  say  unto  thee.  And  he  saith,  Master,  say  on.  A  certain 
creditor  had  two  debtors  :  the  one  owed  five  hundred  pence,  and  the 
other  fifty.  And  as  they  had  nothing  to  pay,  he  frankly  forgave  them 
both,  t  Which  of  them,  therefore,  will  love  him  most  1 1  Simon  answer ea 
and  said:  I  suppose  that  he  to  whom  he  forgave  most.  And  He  said 
unto  Him:  Thou  hast  rightly  judged.  And  turning  to  the  womant 
He  said  unto  Simon  :   Seest  thou  this  woman  t    I  entered  into  thine 

*  On  this  account  Goebel  has  not  deemed  this  parable  a  suitable  theme 
for  an  independent  discussion,  thereby  missing  a  most  outstanding 
feature  in  our  Lord's  parabolic  teaching. 

*  KanicXiOt),  literally  lay  down  on  the  couch,  the  reclining  posture  being 
in  use  ;  the  head  towards  the  table,  the  feet  stretched  out  behind,  so  that 
the  feet  of  Jesus  were  easily  accessible  to  the  woman. 

*  KartfiXu  ;  the  xara  is  intensive,  kissed  tenderly ;  and,  as  appears  from 
▼.  45,  repeatedly. 


238  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  11. 

own '  house,  thou  pouredst  no  water  upon  My  feet :  but  she  with  her 
tears  wetted  My  feet,  and  with  her  hair  she  wiped  them.  A 
single  kiss  thou  gavest  Me  not ;  but  she,  since  the  time  I  came  in,  has 
not  ceased  kissing  My  feet.  My  head  with  oil  thou  anointedst  not; 
but  she  with  spikenard 2  anointed  My  feet.  Wherefore  I  tell  you,  for- 
given are  her  sins,  her  many  sins?  for  she  loved  much;  but  he  to  whom 
little  is  forgiven,  loveth  little.  Then  He  said  to  her  :  Thy  sins  are 
forgiven.  And  His  fellow-guests  *  began  to  say  within  themselves, 
Who  is  this  who  also  forgiveth  sins  t  But  He  said  to  the  woman  : 
Thy  faith  hath  saved  tJiee,  go  into  peace. — Luke  vii.  36—50. 

Where,  when,  and  by  whom,  this  anointing  of  Jesus  was 
performed,  whether  by  Mary  of  Bethany,  or  by  Mary  of  Mag- 
dala,  or  by  any  other  Mary,  are  questions  which  cannot  be 
answered,  and  which  therefore  it  is  idle  to  discuss.  All  we 
know  of  the  time  and  place  of  the  remarkable  scene  is,  that  it 
occurred  in  a  certain  city  or  village  in  the  house  of  a  Pharisee 
named  Simon,  and  that  the  story  is  told  by  Luke  at  this  point 
in  his  narrative  because  it  served  to  illustrate  how  Jesus  earned 
the  honourable  nickname  of  the  sinner's  friend.  And  all  we 
know  of  the  heroine  of  the  scene  is,  that  she  had  been  a 
woman  of  evil  life  in  that  town,  and  was  still  in  evil  repute,  the 
secret  of  her  repentance  being  as  yet  known  only  to  God — a 
'sinner'  in  a  sense  needing  no  explanation,  there  being  only 
one  form  of  sin  which  the  world  takes  special  note  of  in 
woman.6  That  a  female  of  such  a  character  should  have 
gained  an  entrance  into  the  house  of  a  respectable  member  of 
society  may  seem  surprising,  even  when  we  recollect  the 
customs  of  the  country.  It  was,  we  know,  no  breach  of  good 
manners  for  uninvited  persons  to  enter  a  house  when  a  feast 
was  going  on,  and  sitting  down  by  the  wall  to  observe  and 
even  converse  with  the  guests  ;  travellers  report  such  invasions 

1  oov  emphatic,  to  suggest  that  he  had  neglected  the  duty  of  a  host 

*  iit>PV*  (so  in  ver.  38),  in  contrast  to  the  more  common  olive  oil  (i\aiip). 
Grotius  remarks  that  though  the  Hebrews,  like  the  Greeks,  were  wont  to 
call  all  sorts  of  ointments  by  the  name  of  oil,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  in 
this  place  common  oil  is  meant  by  IXaLtp,  because  a  contrast  runs  through 
the  whole  verse  (est  enim  perpetua  apnarotxia). 

8  Such  is  the  order  in  the  original ;  the  significance  of  it  will  be  brought 
out  in  the  exposition. 

*  01  ovvavaKiifiivoi. 

*  For  examples  in  Greek  and  Latin  authors  of  the  use  of  the  generic 
term  'sinner'  to  denote  the  special  sin  of  unchastity  in  women,  see 
Wetstein,  in  loc. 


CH.  I.] 


The  Two  Debtors.  239 


of  privacy,  as  they  appear  to  us,  as  happening  in  Palestine  in 
©ur  own  day.1  But  a  woman  who  was  a  '  sinner,'  how  could 
she  venture  upon  such  a  liberty  ? — what  chance  of  her  presence 
being  tolerated  even  if  she  dared  to  intrude  herself?  Possibly 
her  sin  was  an  open  secret  known  to  all,  yet  which  all  could 
ignore  if  they  chose :  the  sin  not  of  a  harlot,  but  only  of  a 
woman  of  frail  virtue.2  In  that  case  it  was  perhaps  not  much 
more  surprising  that  she  should  appear  in  Simon's  house  as  a 
spectator,  than  that  Jesus  should  appear  there  as  a  guest ;  for 
there  were  not  many  Pharisees  who  thought  well  enough  of 
Him  to  be  willing  to  do  Him  such  an  honour.  Both  events 
were  somewhat  out  of  course,  not  every-day  occurrences  ;  but 
unlikely  things  do  happen  occasionally  to  interupt  the  mono- 
tony of  ordinary  existence  ;  and  these  were  of  the  number, 
perfectly  credible  as  matters  of  fact,  and  things  to  be  thankful 
for  on  account  of  the  animated  scene  to  which  they  gave  rise. 
When  two  such  persons  meet  the  company  is  not  likely  to 
be  dull. 

The  woman  had  a  definite  purpose  in  coming  into  the  house 
of  Simon.  She  came  not  to  be  a  mere  spectator,  but  to  anoint 
her  benefactor  with  a  box  of  precious  ointment.  Her  .bene- 
factor we  must  assume  Jesus  to  have  been,  though  we  know 
nothing  of  the  previous  relations.  It  were  easy  to  invent  a 
past  history  which  should  account  for  the  present  situation. 
Jesus  lived  in  public ;  He  went  about  the  land  doing  good, 
preaching  the  good  tidings  of  the  kingdom,  and  healing  the 
sick  ;  all  had  opportunities  of  seeing  Him  and  hearing  Him. 
Many  of  the  degraded  class  did  see  and  hear  Him  with  blessed 
effects  on  their  hearts,  and  we  may  safely  assume  that  this 
sinful  woman  was  of  the  number,  and  that  she  is  here  to  do 
honour  to  One  whose  gracious  words  and  benignant  aspect 
have  changed  the  current  of  her  affections,  and  possibly  "  to 

*  Vide  Farrar's  '  Life  of  Christ,'  vol.  i.  p.  298,  where  the  author  speaks 
of  the  custom  from  personal  observation. 

*  So  Grotius :  non  publicae  libidinis  victima,  sed  alioqui  vitae  parum 
pudicae.  Against  this  view,  however,  is  the  reading  in  ver.  37,  approved 
by  critical  editors  :  ywi)  fjr»c  ^v  lv  ry  x6\u  apapruiXbc,  which  seems  to 
imply  that  she  practised  a  shameful  calling  in  the  city,  whereas  the  reading 
in  the  T.  R.,  which  places  tjrig  ffv  after  *b\u,  implies  merely  that  she  was  a 
woman  of  evil  reputation.  So  Godet ;  but  the  moral  import  of  the  two 
readings  is  not  so  eertain  as  he  represents. 


240         The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  it 

give  to  Him  and  to  herself  a  pledge  Df  her  resolution  to  change 
her  life."1  But  in  proceeding  to  carry  out  her  purpose  she 
does  more  than  she  intended.  As  she  approaches  the  object 
of  her  devoted  regard  her  heart  begins  to  swell  with  contend- 
ing emotions  of  shame,  sorrow,  love,  and  fear ;  she  bursts  into 
a  flood  of  passionate  tears  which  fall  upon  the  feet  of  Jesus ; 
the  feet  so  wetted  with  '  heart- water  '2  she  dries  with  her 
flowing  hair,  having  nothing  better  at  hand  for  the  purpose;3 
then  pressing  them  to  her  lips  she  covers  them  with  fervent 
kisses  ;  and  only  after  her  transports  have  thus  been  calmed, 
and  she  has  somewhat  recovered  her  composure,  does  she  at 
length  perform  the  more  ordinary  act  of  homage. 

Conduct  so  unusual  could  not  fail  to  create  a  general  sens- 
ation in  the  guest-chamber,  and  especially  to  arrest  the 
astonished  attention  of  the  host.  Had  the  woman  come  in 
quietly  and  taken  a  place  apart,  as  a  spectator,  her  presence 
though  unwelcome  might  have  been  overlooked  by  Simon. 
But  behaviour  so  bold,  so  impudent,  how  could  he  regard 
otherwise  than  with  amazement,  disapprobation,  and  disgust  ? 
And  then  what  was  he  to  think  of  Jesus  for  suffering  such 
attentions?  He  could  not  think  so  ill  of  Him  as  to  believe 
Him  capable  of  receiving  these  with  complacency  had  He 
known  the  character  of  the  person  bestowing  them;  but  at 
the  least  he  must  gravely  doubt  His  prophetic  insight.  What 
he  felt  was  apparent  in  his  face  and  manner  to  any  eye  of 
ordinary  discernment.  The  intruder  appeared  to  him  to  be 
simply  acting  her  characteristic  part  as  a  '  sinner/  and  the 
behaviour  of  his  guest  cast  him  into  a  state  of  painful  perplex- 
ity. The  woman  was  unhesitatingly  condemned,  and  Jesus 
was  put  upon  His  defence.  Now  to  us,  who  are  in  the  secret, 
these  hard  suspicious  thoughts  seem  of  course  altogether 
groundless.  Yet  we  must  do  the  Pharisee  the  justice  to  say 
that  in  his  circumstances,  and  from  his  point  of  view,  they 
were  very  natural.  How  was  he  to  know  that  a  great  moral 
change  had  come  over  this  woman,  whom  he  had  hitherto 
known  only  as  a  person  of  evil  life  ?     Doubtless  he  might 

1  Reuss,  'Histoire  Evange*lique.' 

*  Luther's  expression,  Herzenwasser.  Vide  *  Hauspostillen.  Bengel's 
phrase  is,  Lacrimal  aquarum  pretiosissimae. 

3  Godet  suggests,  not  without  probability,  that  she  unbound  her  hair 
for  the  purpose. 


ch.  i.]  The  Two  Debtors.  241 

have  observed  those  tears,  which  were  suggestive  of  another 
hypothesis  than  that  by  which  he  accounted  for  her  strange 
behaviour.  But  then  how  unlikely  that  other  hypothesis !  how 
improbable  that  the  frail  one  is  here  in  the  capacity  of  a  peni- 
tent! how  rare  an  event  is  such  a  moral  transformation  1 
Celsus  said,  "  to  change  nature  perfectly  is  very  difficult;"1 
and  holding  such  an  opinion  he  was  very  naturally  surprised 
at  the  interest  taken  by  Christians  in  the  vicious.  Simon 
doubtless  shared  the  heathen  philosopher's  scepticism  regard- 
ing conversion,  as  does  the  world  in  general,  and  therefore  we 
cannot  wonder  if  the  penitence-hypothesis  did  not  even  so 
much  as  occur  to  his  mind.  He  grievously  misjudged  in  con- 
sequence ;  but  his  mistake  was  at  least  quite  as  excusable  as 
that  of  Eli,  who  deemed  that  Hannah  was  drunk,  when  she 
was  only  a  woman  of  a  sorrowful  spirit.2  It  needs  an  un- 
usually delicate  and  sympathetic  mind  to  judge  rightly  in  such 
cases,  and  Eli  and  Simon  were  commonplace  men. 

Happily  for  the  object  of  Simon's  harsh  judgment,  there 
was  one  present  who  could  divine  the  real  situation.  The 
quick  loving  eye  of  Jesus  detected  what  escaped  the  observ- 
ation of  a  Pharisee  whose  vision  was  blunted  by  prejudice 
and  custom  ;  and,  reading  at  the  same  moment  with  equal 
rapidity  and  certainty  the  thoughts  of  His  host,  He  forthwith 
proceeded  to  put  the  true  interpretation  on  the  phenomena, 
and  so  to  defend  at  once  the  woman  and  Himself.  Nor  was 
He  sorry  to  have  the  opportunity  of  offering  the  double 
apology.  For  He  had  felt  the  coldness  of  Simon's  manner 
towards  Himself  on  entering  his  house  as  a  guest.  He  saw 
at  once  on  what  footing  He  stood  ;  that  He  was  regarded  as 
a  social  inferior,  and  that  He  was  there  to  be  patronised  by 
one  who  thought  he  showed  condescension  in  inviting  Him 
to  his  house,  and  might  therefore  excuse  himself  for  neglecting 
the  ordinary  attentions  paid  by  a  host  to  guests  of  his  own 
rank.8     Such  indignity  the  lowly  Son  of  man  could  meekly 

1  Origen, '  C.  Celsum,'  lib.  iii.  c.  65.      *t/<m>  yap  d/ietyai  nXwt  irayxaktirom. 

*  I  Sam.  i.  14,  15. 

*  Meyer  remarks  that  the  custom  of  feet  washing  was  not  an  absolute 
rule,  but  was  observed  chiefly  towards  persons  arriving  off  a  journey. 
But  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  a  difference  had  been  made  between 
Jesus  and  other  guests  of  higher  social  rank. 

a 


24a  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  il 

endure,  nor  did  He  resent  it  in  the  present  instance,  for  the 
tone  of  the  words  which  He  spake  at  this  time  is  not  that  of 
anger,  but  of  one  who,  feeling  His  own  moral  superiority,  can 
with  easy  self-possession  say  what  fits  the  occasion.  "  Simon, 
I  have  somewhat  to  say  unto  thee : "  what  composure  is  in 
that  beginning!  But  though  He  cherishes  no  resentment 
against  Simon  for  the  treatment  He  has  received,  He  deems 
it  right  to  avail  Himself  of  a  legitimate  opportunity  of  setting 
it  also  in  its  true  light,  in  the  hope  that  he  who  has  hitherto 
been  occupied  in  judging  others,  may  enter  upon  the  more 
profitable  occupation  of  judging  himself.  And  with  exquisite 
felicity,  He  contrives  to  accomplish  this  purpose  at  the  same 
time  that  He  is  pursuing  the  other,  that  viz.  of  defending  the 
woman  and  Himself  against  Simon's  unjust  suspicions.  One 
brief,  simple  parable  serves  both  ends — at  once  apologising  for 
the  accused,  and  bringing  a  countercharge  against  the  accuser. 
Were  it  not,  indeed,  for  the  interpretation  given  by  Jesus  Him- 
self, in  which  He  makes  a  complaint  of  Simon's  coldness,  we 
might  not  be  perfectly  sure  that  the  parable  was  meant  to  have 
an  offensive  as  well  as  a  defensive  bearing.  We  might  think 
that  the  second  debtor  did  not  necessarily  represent  Simon 
or  any  one  in  particular,  but  was  merely  introduced  as  a  foil 
to  the  first  and  for  the  sake  of  contrast.  But  even  apart  from 
the  interpretation  following,  there  are  little  touches  in  the 
parable  itself  which  seem  to  indicate  a  purpose  to  attack  as 
well  as  to  defend.  There  is  the  pointed  manner  in  which  the 
Speaker  intimates  to  Simon  His  desire  to  say  something  to 
him}  Then  there  is  the  question  with  which  the  parable 
winds  up,  Which  of  them  now  will  love  him  most  ?  which 
looks  very  like  a  device  to  entrap  Simon  into  a  judgment  on 
himself  after  the  manner  of  Nathan  with  David.2  One  would 
say,  beforehand,  even  without  reading  the  application,  that 
the  woman  being  of  course  the  greater  debtor  in  the  parable, 
Simon  is  represented  by  the  other,  and  that  Jesus  meant  to 
insinuate  that  if  the  woman  had  loved  Himself  so  ardently, 
Simon  had  sinned  in  the  opposite  direction,  though  in  what 
precise  respects  he  had  come  short  we  should  not  have  known 
unless  we  had  been  informed. 

1  Si/iwv,  f  x<"  aoi  n  tiiriiv. 

*  On  'Opflwc  t icpivac,  v.  43,  Godet  well  observes,  that  it  is  the  Udvv  6p9&t 
pf  Socrates,  when  he  had  caught  his  interlocutor  in  his  net. 


CHt  I#]  The  Two  Debtors.  243 

This  parable  of  the  Two  Debtors  is  so  simple  in  its  struct- 
ure,  that  it  needs  hardly  any  explanation.     The  case  put  is 
plain,  and  the  inference  suggested  is  equally  so.     The  answer 
of  Simon  to  the  question,  Which  will  love  him  most  ?  is  the 
judgment  of  common  sense.     He  to  whom  most  is  forgiven 
will  certainly  love  most ;  that  is,  on  the  assumption  that  the 
two   debtors   are    in     other  respects  alike ;   for  we  know,  of 
course,  that  a  man  of  a  generous  disposition  will  be  more 
grateful  for  a  small  favour  than  a  man  of  selfish  nature  will 
be  for  a  greater.     The  only  feature  that  may  seem  a  little 
surprising   is   the   smallness   of  the  sums    owed,   especially 
when   compared   with  those  named   in  the    parable  of  the 
Unmerciful  Servant.     The  purpose  may  have  been  to  insure 
an  unbiassed  judgment  on  the  part  of  Simon,  by  preventing 
the  suspicion  arising  in  his  mind  that  he  was  aimed  at.     So 
important  a  person  was  not  likely  to  think  of  himself  as  con- 
cerned in  a  transaction  where  such  paltry  sums  were  involved 
as  fifty   and   five  hundred    pence.     If  this   was   what   was 
designed,   the  device  was  perfectly  successful.     The  air  of 
languid   indifference  with  which   Simon  gave  his  judgment, 
as  if  the  case  supposed  were  too  insignificant  to  awaken  any 
interest  in  his  mind,  shows  that  he  had  no  thought  of  its 
having  a  reference  to  himself.    Then  while  the  pettiness  of 
the  amounts  served  this  purpose  beforehand,  the  utter  insig- 
nificance of  the  smaller  amount  served  another  purpose  after- 
hand,  when  Jesus  had  given   His  own  interpretation  of  the 
parable,  that  viz.  of  letting  Simon  see  what  value  his  lightly- 
esteemed  guest  set  upon  his  love.    You  have  loved  me,  it  said 
in  effect,  as  one  who  has  been  forgiven  fifty  pence ;  as  one, 
that  is,  who  has  received  a  scarcely  appreciable  favour.     On 
the  other  hand,  the  larger  sum,  though  in  itself  of  no  great 
amount,  was  sufficiently  great  to  be  a  measure  of  the  penitent's 
gratitude  both  by, comparison  and  absolutely.     By  compari- 
son, for  it  was  ten  times  greater  than  the  smaller  sum  ;  abso- 
lutely, for  it  was  a  considerable  amount  in  relation  to  the 
social  position  of  the  humbler  debtor.1 

1  The  smallness  of  the  sums  owed  may  be  an  indirect  indication  of  the 
prevalent  poverty  of  the  country.  Hausrath,  in  his  ■  Neutestamentliche 
Zeitgeschichte  '— '  History  of  the  New  Testament  Times'— has  gathered 
together  the  many  indications  in  the  Gospels  of  the  prevalence  in  Palestine 
«f  impoverishment  produced  by  excessive  taxation.     M  The  most  frequent 


244  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  ii. 

The  one  matter  regarding  this  parable  which  needs  careful 
consideration  is  its  aim.  What  purpose  or  purposes  was  it 
designed  to  serve  ?  Now,  as  we  have  already  indicated,  the 
parable  was  spoken  with  a  threefold  aim ;  first,  to  defend  the 
conduct  of  the  woman  by  suggesting  the  point  of  view  under 
which  it  ought  to  be  regarded  ;  second,  to  impugn  the  conduct 
of  the  Pharisee ;  and  third,  to  defend  the  conduct  of  Jesus 
Himself  in  accepting  the  homage  rendered.  We  will  consider 
the  parable  in  these  three  points  of  view  in  succession. 

I.  "When  the  whole  circumstances  are  duly  borne  in  mind, 
it  becomes  clear  that  the  first  thing  to  be  done  was  to  put 
a  right  construction  on  the  strange  behaviour  of  the  woman. 
That  she  loved  Jesus,  loved  Him  much,  was  evident ;  but  the 
quality  and  motive  of  the  love  were  not  so  apparent ;  they 
had  in  fact  been  grievously  misunderstood  by  Simon.  These 
therefore  must  first  be  set  in  their  true  light.  And  how  is 
this  done  ?  Simply  by  constructing  a  story  of  two  debtors, 
and  thereby  suggesting  that  the  case  of  the  woman  is  the 

images  in  the  utterances  of  Jesus  are  those  of  the  creditor,  the  debtor,  and 
the  debtor's  prison.  In  one  parable,  everybody  except  the  king  is  bank- 
rupt ;  the  steward  is  in  debt  to  the  king  ;  the  servant  to  the  steward 
(Matt,  xviii.  23)  ;  the  rich  who  remit  to  their  debtors  fifty  or  five  hundred 
pence  are  rare  indeed  (Luke  vi.  34 ;  vii.  41) ;  the  unmerciful  creditor  who 
always  has  the  bailiff  at  hand  is  much  more  frequent.  In  the  street,  the 
creditor  seizes  the  poor  debtor,  and  the  judge's  officer  casts  him  into  prison, 
out  of  which  he  does  not  depart  before  he  has  paid  the  very  last  farthing 
(Luke  xii.  58) ;  and  if  he  cannot  pay,  his  lord  commands  him  to  be  sold, 
and  his  wife  and  children,  and  all  that  he  has,  and  payment  to  be  made 
(Matt,  xviii.  25).  Oil  and  wheat,  the  first  necessaries  of  life,  are  furnished 
on  credit  (Luke  xvi.  6,  7)  ;  buildings  that  have  been  commenced  remain 
unfinished  for  want  of  money  (Luke  xiv.  29) ;  the  merchant  puts  all  his 
means,  in  order  to  keep  them  safe,  into  a  single  pearl  (Matt.  xiii.  46)  ;  in 
digging  in  the  field,  one  finds  the  treasure  which  another  has  buried  to 
keep  it  from  the  rapacious  hands  of  the  oppressor  (Matt.  xiii.  44) ;  specu- 
lators keep  their  corn  back  from  the  markets,  and  enlarge  their  storehouses 
(Luke  xii.  18).  With  this  impoverishment  is  connected  the  parcelling 
out  of  estates  ;  in  place  of  the  plough,  appears  on  the  smaller  allotments 
spade  husbandry.  "What  shall  I  do?"  says  the  ruined  steward  ;  "I 
cannot  dig,  to  beg  I  am  ashamed  "  (Luke  xvi.  3).  The  result  of  this  wanf 
of  money  is  usury.  The  bank  of  exchange  flourishes  (Luke  xix.  23)  ;  in  a 
short  time  (?)  the  speculator  multiplies  his  capital  five-fold  and  ten-told 
(Luke  xix.  16,  18).  This  is  the  economic  background  of  the  evangelic 
history  which  comes  to  light  in  a  hundred  places." — Vol.  I.  pp.  188,  189. 
English  translation,  Williams  and  Norgate. 


ch.  i.]  The  Two  Debtors.  245 

case  of  a  moral  debtor  forgiven.  As  in  the  saying,  M  They 
that  be  whole  need  not  a  physician,"  the  point  lies  in  the 
suggestion  that  Jesus  was  a  physician  ;  so  in  this  parable 
the  emphasis  lies  in  the  suggestion  that  the  accused  is  not 
merely  a  sinner,  but  a  sinner  forgiven,  and  that  her  love 
proceeds  from  gratitude  for  the  remission  of  her  debts.  It 
is  true  no  express  mention  is  made  of  the  quality  of  the 
love,  but  only  of  its  quantity,  but  the  quality  is  involved  in 
the  relevancy  of  the  parable.  It  had  been  a  mere  impertin- 
ence to  speak  a  parable  of  two  debtors,  unless  it  were  meant 
to  convey  the  idea  that  the  woman  was  a  debtor  forgiven, 
and  her  love  a  debtor's  love  to  her  generous  creditor.  This 
indirect  way  of  saying  the  thing  chiefly  intended  is  incidental 
to  the  parabolic  style,  and  when  that  is  remembered  it  is 
very  forcible.  We  then  see  the  point  of  the  parable,  as 
we  see  a  star  glimmering  into  view  in  the  evening  twilight, 
most  clearly,  by  looking  a  little  to  one  side  of  it.  Unfor- 
tunately many  commentators  have  not  looked  a  little  to  one 
side,  but  have  gazed  too  directly  at  the  object,  and  so  have 
failed  to  see  it,  and  in  consequence  have  fallen  into  error  in 
the  interpretation  of  the  sentence  in  which  our  Lord  ex- 
plained His  leading  purpose  in  uttering  the  parable  :  "  Where- 
fore I  say  unto  thee,  her  sins,  which  are  many,  are  forgiven  ; 
for  she  loved  much."x  These  words  have  been  a  stumbling- 
block  to  many,  logically  and  theologically ;  the  latter  because 
they  seem  to  teach  the  Romish  doctrine  of  justification  by 
charity,  as  opposed  to  the  Protestant  doctrine  of  justification 
by  faith  ;  the  former  because,  so  understood,  they  stand  in  no 
relation  to  the  connection  of  thought  either  before  or  after 
The  logical  difficulty  is  the  more  serious  of  the  two ;  for  one 
might  manage  to  overcome  the  other,  either  by  magnanim- 
ously conceding  the  point  to  the  Catholic  interpreter,  and 
contenting  ourselves  with  the  philosophic  reflection  that  in 
these  enlightened  times  "we  have  surmounted  the  polemical 
antithesis  to  work-holiness,"*  or  by  ingeniously  endeavouring 
to  attach  to  the  verb  "  loved  "  a  sense  approximating  to  the 
idea  of  faith,  making  it  e.g.  equivalent  to  '  longed,'  so  that 

1  Ver.  47. 

•  So  De  Wette ;  as  if  feeling  that  the  tense  was  against  him  he  says,  w« 

may  add  to  ^ydrnfut  ayany. 


246  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  il 

the  didactic  import  of  the  words  should  be  somewhat  like 
this :  He  who  is  to  believe  in  forgiveness  must  have  that 
longing  for  pardon  which  is  love  in  its  passive  or  receptive 
side,  and  is  at  the  same  time  substantially  faith.1  Such 
ingenious  devices  for  reducing  love  to  faith,  and  so  squaring 
Christ's  doctrine  with  Protestant  orthodoxy,  do  certainly 
leave  on  the  mind  an  impression  of  artificiality  ;  but  one 
could  reconcile  himself  to  that  if  no  better  way  out  of  the 
difficulty  could  be  found.  But  the  logical  difficulty  remains, 
the  irrelevance  of  the  words  so  interpreted  to  the  situation 
and  the  connection  of  thought.  Thus  understood,  the  words 
do  not  contribute  to  the  explanation  of  the  parable,  but 
simply  contain  an  independent  didactic  thought,  to  the  effect 
that  the  woman  will  receive  forgiveness  of  her  many  sins, 
because  she  has  a  great  yearning  for  forgiveness,  as  evinced 
by  her  whole  behaviour.  It  is  very  hard  to  believe  that  any 
such  incoherence  characterised  the  utterances  of  Christ  on 
this  occasion.  But  we  are  not  reduced  to  such  an  unwelcome 
necessity.  If  we  only  keep  in  mind  the  situation,  the 
meaning,  point,  and  appositeness  of  the  disputed  sentence 
become  perfectly  clear.  Christ's  purpose  in  uttering  these 
words  is  to  suggest  to  Simon  the  true  point  of  view  from 
which  the  woman's  conduct  is  to  be  regarded.  He  says  here 
plainly  what  he  has  already  said  parabolically :  the  case  of 
this  woman  is  the  case  of  a  debtor  forgiven.  The  solemn 
manner  of  address,  "  Wherefore  I  say  unto  thee,"  indicates 
a  purpose  to  correct  a  wrong  impression,  indicates  that  as 
the  chief  purpose  of  the  Speaker,  though  it  is  not  the  first 
thing  spoken   of.2    The  order   of  the   words   which  follow 

1  So  Olshausen.  who  views  faith  as  love  receptive  or  the  negative  pole, 
forgiving  love  as  the  positive  pole.  Similarly  Trench,  who  finds  comfort 
in  the  fact  that  Theophylact  identifies  the  love  referred  to  in  ver.  47  with 
faith.  Having  stated  in  the  text  that  the  woman's  yearning  love  "  in  fact 
was  faith,"  he  appends  the  note,  "  very  distinctly  Theophylact  in  /oc, 
in  rjydirijijf  rrokv,  avn  rov  irioriv  IvtStiZaro  iroWqv."  It  is  true  that  Theophy- 
lact does  say  this,  but  his  saying  so  does  not  settle  the  matter.  It  only 
shows  that  he  felt  the  pressure  of  the  difficulty. 

2  I  take  ov  x*9iv  as  connected  with  Xeyw  001,  not  with  what  follows,  and 
understand  it  as  mediating  a  return  to  the  principal  thought  in  the  mind 
of  the  speaker,  from  the  detailed  contrast  between  the  conduct  of  the 
woman  and  that  of  Simon.  Taken  with  the  clause  beginning  with  tykuvrai 
the  phrase  must  be  rendered  "  on  this  account  "—because  of  the  love 
displayed  as  aforesaid,  her  sins  are  forgiven. 


ch.  i.J  The  Two  Debtors.  247 

points  in  the  same  direction  :  "  Forgiven  are  her  sins,  her 
many  sins  ;  for  she  loved  much."  The  idea  of  forgiveness 
is  put  in  the  forefront,  to  suggest  a  way  of  regarding  the 
woman's  conduct  which  Simon  had  never  thought  of.  "  She 
is  a  moral  debtor  forgiven,  Simon  " — Jesus  would  say  :  "  she 
is  forgiven — that  is  the  key  to  the  strange  behaviour  you  have 
so  grievously  misconstrued.  Her  sins  have  been  forgiven, 
her  many  sins  :  for  you  are  not  wrong  in  thinking  of  her  as 
a  great  sinner — that  is  manifest  from  her  behaviour :  for  in  all 
these  acts  which  have  awakened  so  much  surprise, '  she  loved 
mach,'  and  that  is  the  way  of  those  who  have  been  forgiven 
much."  Thus  paraphrased,  the  saying  which  has  created  so 
much  perplexity  fits  naturally  into  the  whole  situation.  The 
first  clause,  "  forgiven  are  her  sins,"  corrects  Simon's  miscon- 
struction and  reveals  the  character  of  the  woman's  love ;  the 
second  clause,  "  her  many  sins,"  concedes  all  that  Simon  can 
say  as  to  the  woman's  past  life  ;  the  third  clause,  "  for  she 
loved  much,"  at  once  indicates  the  source  of  the  knowledge 
that  her  sins  were  many,  and  the  existence  of  a  connection 
between  the  multitude  of  her  sins  and  the  excess  of  her 
love.  For  this  last  clause  does  not  depend  on  the  first  clause, 
but  on  the  second,  not  on  d<£eWrai,  but  on  -noWaC ; x  and  so 
connected  it  contains  by  implication  the  didactic  statement 
which  we  expect  as  the  counterpart  to  that  which  follows  : 
"  but  to  whom  little  is  forgiven,  the  same  also  loveth  little." 
Expanded,  Christ's  whole  meaning  is  this :  "  Now  then, 
Simon,  let  me  tell  you  the  truth  about  this  poor  woman :  Her 
whole  conduct  means  that  she  is  a  penitent  who  has  been  led 
by  me  to  entertain  the  hope  that  her  sinful  life  may  be  for- 
given. That  life  in  your  opinion  has  been  very  full  of  sin. 
I  can  see  that  there  you  are  not  mistaken  :  that  her  sins  are 
many  her  behaviour  towards  myself  attests,  for  in  all  these 
acts  she  showed  much  love  ; 2  and  that  much  love  is  the  sure 

1  The  interpretation  of  this  verse  by  Grotius  is  not  the  same  as  ours, 
but  he  recognises  that  iroWai  is  emphatic.  He  gives  to  the  verse  this 
turn :  God  pardons  sin,  great  sin,  in  the  hope  of  producing  such  great  love 
as  this  woman  has  shown.  The  woman's  sin  was  pardoned  in  the  foresight 
of  such  love  as  the  natural  effect.  This  idea  corresponds  to  the  text, 
•  there  is  forgiveness  with  thee,  that  thou  mayest  be  feared,"  and  coincides 
with  our  view  as  to  Christ's  motive  in  receiving  publicans  and  sinners. 

•  The  aorist  ^ydiriict  implies  a  reference  to  the  acts  enumerated  in  the 
previous  verses. 


248  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  11 

sign  of  much  forgiven,  just  as  little  love,  exemplified  in  youi 
own  conduct,  is  the  sure  sign  of  little  forgiven." 1 

2.  The  parable  was  spoken  not  only  in  defence  of  the 
woman,  but  as  an  attack  on  the  fault-finder.  It  is  in  a  parti- 
cular instance  the  judgment  of  Pharisaism,  as  an  ungenial  soil 
in  which  the  gospel  of  the  kingdom  had  little  chance  of  taking 
root.  It  is  a  judgment  pronounced  in  a  fair  and  candid  spirit 
through  a  favourable  sample  of  the  class,  for  such  Simon 
seems  to  have  been.  This  Pharisee  was  of  a  milder  spirit 
than  the  majority  of  his  co-religionists.  He  cherished  no 
unkindly  feelings  towards  Jesus.  When  puzzled  by  His 
conduct,  as  at  this  time,  he  did  not  think  the  hardest  thoughts 
of  Him,  for  many  would  have  plainly  said  something  much 
more  injurious  than,  "  He  cannot  be  a  prophet."  Simon  was 
a  sort  of  Nicodemus ;  he  had  respect  enough  for  Jesus  to 
invite  Him  to  dinner,  though  too  hampered  by  pride  and 
prejudice  to  be  cordial  in  his  hospitality  ;  as  Nicodemus  had 
respect  enough  for  Jesus  to  visit  him,  but  only  by  night.  In 
this  light  Jesus  seems  to  have  regarded  him.  He  was  willing 
to  recognise  him  as  one  who  cherished  towards  Himself  at 
least  a  little  love.  If  He  animadverted  on  the  littleness  of 
the  love,  it  was  in  no  vindictive  spirit,  not  to  gratify  private 
resentment,  but  for  a  higher  purpose.  The  very  frankness  of 
the  complaint  testifies  to  the  absence  of  perturbing  passions 
from  the  mind  of  the  Speaker.  The  description  of  a  little 
debtor's  love,  as  exemplified  by  Simon,  is  pervaded  by  a 
triumphant  buoyancy  of  spirit  and  a  happy  play  of  humour 
which  exclude  the  supposition  that  injured  feeling  was  the 
source  of  inspiration.  Far  from  being  angry  with  his  host, 
Jesus  pitied  him  as  a  soul  in  bonds,  unable  to  break  away 
from  conventionalism  in  thought  and  action,  and  He  described 

1  The  view  above  given,  according  to  which  on  in  last  clause  of  ver. 
47,  points  out  that  by  which  a  certain  fact  is  known,  not  that  on  account 
of  which  a  certain  thing  is  done,  is  that  taken  by  Unger  ;  Meyer  (on,  vom 
Erkenntnissgrunde  zu  fassen);  Kuinoel  (who  holds  that  the  other  view, 
even  if  true,  is  an  irrelevance)  ;  Bengel  (on,  Remissio  peccatorum,  Simoni 
non  cogitata,  probatur  a  fructu) ;  Reuss,  Stier,  Godet,  and  most  recent 
commentators  (not  Keim).  The  greater  number  make  on  depend  not  on 
iroXXat,  but  on  d<piwprat.  The  old  Protestant  interpretation  which  took  In 
as  equivalent  to  St6  is  entirely  out  of  date,  and  may  be  referred  to  merely 
as  an  instance  of  exegesis  occupying  a  position  of  servile  subordination  to 
the  dogmatic  interest. 


ch.  ij  The  Two  Debtors.  249 

his  state  in  hope  to  set  him  free.  And  how  significant  as  well 
as  graphic  the  description  !  "  Thou  gavest  Me  no  water  for 
My  feet ;  thou  gavest  Me  not  a  kiss ;  My  head  with  oil  thou 
didst  not  anoint."  Cold  civility,  no  heart,  no  cordiality,  no 
spontaneity,  no  free  play  of  natural  affection.  This  in  the 
matter  of  hospitality,  and  the  same  thing  of  course  in  all  other 
departments  of  conduct ;  for  the  ruling  spirit  of  a  man  reveals 
itself  in  all  he  does.  The  ruling  spirit  in  this  Pharisee,  and  in 
all  his  class,  is  pride,  protecting  from  sinful  excess  on  the  one 
hand,  but  disqualifying  also  for  heroic  virtue  on  the  other,  and 
dooming  them  to  moral  monotony  and  mediocrity.  The 
pride  of  virtue  binds  their  souls  in  the  ice  of  a  perpetual 
winter,  so  that  in  their  life  are  seen  neither  the  devastating 
floods  of  passion  nor  the  fertilizing  streams  of  charity.  How 
certain  that  the  kingdom  of  heaven  will  draw  few  citizens 
from  the  r-anks  of  Pharisaic  society,  and  what  poor  citizens 
even  the  few  are  likely  to  make  1  Why,  this  man  is  so 
enslaved  by  caste  prejudices  that  he  dares  not  treat  Jesus, 
socially  his  inferior,  and  suspected  by  his  class,  with  gentle- 
manly courtesy  and  right  hospitable  welcome,  but  must  needs 
receive  Him  in  a  style  which  is  a  miserable  compromise 
between  civility  and  insult.  What  chance  is  there  of  such  an 
one  condescending  to  become  a  disciple  of  Jesus,  and  identi- 
fying himself  wholly  with  His  cause?1  As  we  read  this 
indictment  for  inhospitality  we  feel  that  Pharisaism  is  hope- 
less, and  that  if  Jesus  desires  to  make  disciples,  He  must  seek 
them  not  among  the  men  that  need  no  repentance,  but  among 
the  erring  and  lost,  who  neither  can  boast  of  Pharisaic  virtue, 
nor  are  enslaved  by  Pharisaic  pride. 

3.  To  say  just  this  in  His  own  defence  was  the  third  pur- 
pose Jesus  had  in  view  in  uttering  this  parable.  This  purpose 
is  indeed  not  so  apparent  on  the  surface  of  the  parable,  and  it 
has  been  very  little  noticed  by  interpreters,  nevertheless  that 

1  Hofmann  states  it  as  the  aim  of  the  evangelist  in  introducing  at  this 
point  in  his  narrative  the  scene  in  S;mon's  house,  to  show  by  an  example 
how  the  Saviour  of  sinners  could  not  be  their  Saviour,  viz.  because  wanting 
the  sense  of  sin  they  had  no  desire  for  forgiveness  ('Das  Evang.  des 
Lukas,'  p.  203).  This  is  a  defective  account  of  the  design  of  the  narrative, 
but  it  is  true  so  far  as  it  goes.  To  show  the  hopelessness  of  the  Pharisaic 
class  as  a  field  for  evangelistic  effort,  and  the  hopefulness  of  the  classes 
they  despised,  and  so  to  justify  in  both  directions  the  public  action  of 
Jesus,  is  the  full  purpose  and  effect  of  the  narrative. 


2$o  2^  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  it, 

Jesus  had  it  in  view  may  be  considered  certain.  For  in  the 
first  place  He  was  put  on  His  defence  by  Simon's  uncharitable 
thoughts.  Then,  that  He  meant  to  defend  Himself  may  be 
inferred  from  the  question  with  which  the  parable  ends, 
"  Which  of  them  will  love  Him  most  ? "  the  question  clearly 
implying  that  the  amount  of  debt  remitted  and  the  amount  of 
grateful  love  are  connected  by  a  general  law.  It  is  in  effect 
predicted  that  eveiy  debtor  who  is  forgiven  much  will  love 
much.1  But  if  this  be  indeed  the  law  of  the  case,  what  more 
natural  than  that  Christ,  as  the  recipient  of  the  gratitude, 
should  be  influenced  by  that  law  in  His  conduct,  and  pay 
most  attention  to  those  who,  being  forgiven,  would  have  most 
love  to  give  Him,  as  having  been  forgiven  most,  and  that 
having  a  good  opportunity  of  justifying  Himself  for  so  acting, 
as  in  the  present  case,  He  should  avail  Himself  of  it  ?  Fur- 
ther, is  it  not  sufficient  evidence  of  intention  to  defend  conduct 
impugned  that  the  parable  serves  the  purpose  so  admirably, 
saying  in  effect:  I  repel  not  this  woman,  I  accept  gladly 
those  demonstrations  of  devoted  love,  for  I  desire  to  be  much 
loved;  and  for  this  very  reason  it  is  that  I  am  drawn  by 
powerful  attraction  to  comparv  which  you  Pharisees  shun, 
and  if  the  truth  must  be  told  prefer  it  to  yours,  for  I  find  that 
when  they  have  been  brought  to  repentance  and  to  faith  in 
the  forgiveness  of  sins,  their  love  is  as  great  as  their  previous 
sinfulness.  But  it  becomes  if  possible  still  more  certain  that 
a  purpose  of  self-defence  was  in  Christ's  mind,  when  we  take 
into  consideration  the  pointed  contrast  between  the  penitent 
and  the  Pharisee  in  the  application  of  the  parable.  "  Water 
for  My  feet  thou  gavest  not,  but  she  with  tears  did  wet  My 
feet,  and  with  her  hair  she  wiped  them.  A  single  kiss  to  Me 
thou  gavest  not,  but  she,  from  the  time  I  came  in,  hath  incess- 
antly kissed  My  feet.  With  common  oil  My  head  thou  didst 
not  anoint,  but  she  with  costliest  ointment  anointed  My  feet." 
Who,  as  he  reads  these  impassioned  sentences,  does  not  say 
to  himself,  No  wonder  that  Jesus  Christ  preferred  the  society 
of  publicans  and  sinners  to  the  society  of  Pharisees  I  Who 
would  not  take  pains  to  earn  such  love  as  that  of  the  woman  ? 
Who  would  not  rather  be  excused  from  being  the  recipient 
of  such  cold  love  as  that  of  Simon  ?    And  who  can  doubt 

*  nc  .  •  •  Ayairiiffu;  the  predictive  future. 


CH.  1.1  The   Two  Debtors.  451 

that  Jesus  meant  to  suggest  such  thoughts  as  a  part  of  His 
apology  for  loving  sinners,  not  merely  in  self-defence,  but 
in  self-revelation,  that  all  men  might  know  where  His  pre- 
ferences lay  ? 

It  is  matter  of  regret  to  us,  that  in  ascribing  to  Jesus  this 
aim  we  part  company  with  the  commentators,  few  of  whom, 
as  already  noticed,  allude  to  it.  We  take  comfort,  however, 
from  the  fact  that  we  have  on  our  side  one  who,  though  no 
learned  commentator,  was  as  likely  as  any  to  grasp  the  par- 
ticular truth  we  now  insist  on.  Bunyan  saw  it,  and  proclaimed 
it  with  all  his  characteristic  force  and  felicity.  In  his  famous 
sermon  on  "The  Jerusalem  sinner  saved,"  he  specifies  as  one 
of  the  reasons  why  Jesus  would  have  mercy  offered  in  the  first 
place  to  the  biggest  sinners,  that  "  they  when  converted  are 
*pt  to  love  Him  most,"  appealing  in  proof  to  the  words  spoken 
fiy  Jesus  in  the  house  of  Simon.  We  would  gladly  give  our 
■traders  the  benefit  of  the  whole  paragraph,  all  the  more  that 
i\\  these  days  few  probably  will  think  of  turning  to  such  a 
quarter  for  light  upon  a  parable.  But  we  can  find  space  for 
on\y  one  or  two  sentences.  "  If,"  shrewdly  remarks  our 
author,  "  Christ  loves  to  be  loved  a  little,  He  loves  to  be  loved 
much ;  but  there  is  not  any  that  are  capable  of  loving  much, 
save  those  that  have  much  forgiven  them."  He  then  cites 
Paul  as  an  illustration  ;  and  having  given  a  graphic  description 
of  the  apostle's  intense  devotion  to  Christ  and  to  the  gospel, 
he  adds  the  quaint  reflection  :  "  I  wonder  how  far  a  man  might 
go  among  the  converted  sinners  of  the  smaller  size,  before  he 
could  find  one  that  so  much  as  looked  anything  this  wayward. 
Where  is  he  that  is  thus  under  pangs  of  love  for  the  grace  be- 
stowed upon  him  by  Jesus  Christ  ?  Excepting  only  some  few, 
you  may  walk  to  the  world's  end  and  find  none."  Next 
follows  another  illustration,  drawn  from  the  very  narrative 
now  under  consideration,  but  told  as  a  story  concerning  Mar- 
tha and  Mary,  which  Bunyan  had  read  in  a  religious  book 
some  twenty  years  before.  The  story  as  told  is  homely 
enough,  but  the  moral  is  admirably  put.  "  Alas !  Christ  has 
but  little  thanks  for  the  saving  of  little  sinners.  'To  whom 
little  is  forgiven,  the  same  loveth  little.'  He  gets  not  water 
for  His  feet,  by  His  saving  of  such  sinners.  There  are  abund- 
ance of  dry-eyed  Christians  in  the  world,  and  abundance  of 


252         The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  iu 

dry-eyed  duties  too :  duties  that  were  never  wetted  with  the 
tears  of  contrition  and  repentance,  nor  even  sweetened  with 
the  great  sinner's  box  of  ointment."  And  the  conclusion  of 
the  whole  is :  "  Wherefore  His  way  is  oftentimes  to  step  out 
of  the  way,  to  Jericho,  to  Samaria,  to  the  country  of  the  Gad- 
arenes,  to  the  coasts  of  Tyre  and  Sidon,  and  also  to  Mount 
Calvary,  that  He  may  lay  hold  of  such  kind  of  sinners  as  will 
love  Him  to  His  liking."1 

This  declared  preference  of  Christ  is  certainly  very  comfort- 
able news  to  those  whom  it  concerns — to  'Jerusalem  sinners,' 
to  sinners,  so  to  speak,  writ  in  large  capitals.  But  moralists 
may  suggest  the  expediency  of  treating  both  the  preference 
and  the  ground  on  which  it  rests  as  esoteric  doctrines,  to  be 
whispered  in  the  ear  of  the  select  few,  lest  the  open  proclam- 
ation of  them  should  give  rise  to  licentious  abuse,  by  leading 
men  to  think  that  the  best  way  to  qualify  themselves  for 
being  eventually  great  saints  is  in  the  first  place  to  be  great 
sinners.  In  their  laudable  zeal  for  the  interests  of  morality, 
they  may  even  suggest  a  doubt  whether  we  have  correctly 
understood  Christ's  meaning — whether  He  really  intended  to 
say  that  He  expected  the  most  devoted  disciples  to  come 
from  among  those  who  had  greatly  erred,  and  on  this  very 
ground  exercised  His  ministry  chiefly  among  this  class.  Is 
it  not  permissible,  they  may  ask,  to  interpret  the  maxim 
"Much  forgiven,  love  much,"  subjectively^  so  that  it  shall 
mean,  he  who  hath  the  greatest  sense  of  sin,  being  forgiven, 
shall  love  most,  thus  making  the  difference  between  men  turn 
not  upon  the  comparative  amount  of  their  outward  transgres- 
sions, but  upon  the  comparative  sensitiveness  of  their  con- 
sciences, which  may  quite  easily  be  found  in  its  highest  degree 
in  him  who  has  outwardly  offended  the  least.2     Now  we  have 

1  Weizsacker  is  of  opinion  that  the  parable  of  the  Two  Debtors  does  not 
fit  into  its  present  surroundings,  and  that  it  was  spoken  on  some  other 
occasion.  But  he  thinks  that  its  original  sense  certainly  throws  light  on 
the  procedure  of  Jesus  with  the  classes  of  people  who  are  represented  as 
approaching  Him  in  the  narrative  of  the  palsied  man,  and  the  feast  in 
Levi's  house.  "  He  draws  gladly  to  Himself  the  distinctively  sinful  and 
the  aposcates  from  the  law  (Gesetzesabtrunnigen  =  publicans,  &c),  because 
such,  from  the  sense  of  their  guilt,  have  also  a  strong  sense  of  theii 
deliverance,  and  therefore  can  be  won  in  a  deeper,  more  enduring 
manner." — '  Untersuchungen,'  p.  386. 

*  For  the  above  view  vide  Trench. 


ch.  i.]  The  Two  Debtors.  253 

the  greatest  respect  for  such  scruples  and  for  the  motives 
from  which  they  arise.  And  we  admit,  as  Bunyan  admitted, 
that  the  doctrine  in  question,  like  the  kindred  doctrine  of 
justification  by  grace,  may  be  abused  by  evil-minded  men  to 
their  own  hurt  We  acknowledge  further  that  great  devotion 
does  not  necessarily  imply  great  antecedent  misconduct,  and 
that  in  point  of  fact,  many  notable  Christians  never  were 
notable  offenders  in  outward  conduct  against  the  laws  of 
morality ;  as  an  example  of  whom  may  be  cited  Luther,  who 
was  not  remarkable  among  men  for  crime  or  vice,  like 
Augustine  before  his  conversion,  but  only  for  the  morbid 
intensity  of  his  moral  consciousness.  And  we  accept  it  as  a 
corollary  from  this  fact,  that  Christ's  words  must  not  be  so 
strictly  interpreted  as  to  exclude  from  the  category  of  great 
debtors,  who  are  greatly  grateful  for  forgiveness,  such  men  as 
the  German  reformer.  He  to  whom  much  is  forgiven  may 
mean  he  who  feels  himself  to  be  a  great  debtor,  and  he  to 
whom  little  is  forgiven  may  mean  he  who  feels  himself  to  be  a 
small  debtor ;  and  the  latter  may  in  fact  be  the  greater  sinner 
of  the  two,  as  we  know  that  many  of  the  Pharisees  were 
really  worse  men  than  the  very  publicans  and  harlots.  Still 
the  fact  remains  that  the  original  debtors  of  the  parable  were, 
in  the  broad  outward  sense,  great  and  small  debtors  respect- 
ively, the  woman  being  the  great  debtor,  and  Simon  the  small. 
The  further  fact  remains,  that  Jesus  did  really  seek  and  find 
disciples  chiefly  among  those  whose  lives  were  far  from 
correct  and  exemplary,  instead  of  among  those  who,  as 
regards  outward  conduct,  needed  no  repentance.  Therefore,  if, 
on  the  one  hand,  the  subjective  interpretation  of  the  parable 
may  not  be  altogether  excluded,  neither,  on  the  other,  may 
the  objective.  It  must  be  recognised  as  a  fact  that  among 
those  who  have  gone  furthest  wrong  the  kingdom  of  God 
not  only  may  find,  but  is  likely  to  find,  its  best  citizens,  so 
that  the  ministers  of  the  kingdom  are  justified  in  paying 
special  attention  to  that  class.  And  if  the  rationale  of  this 
fact  be  demanded,  it  is  not  very  hard  to  give.  In  the  first 
place,  it  is  much  easier  for  one  who  has  been  a  transgressor, 
to  attain  unto  a  strong  sense  of  his  moral  shortcoming,  than 
for  one  in  whom  the  sinful  principle  has  remained  compara- 
tively latent      Given  the  same  native  strength  of  conscience, 


a$4  2TI#  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book.  11. 

the  man  who  has  been  carried  headlong  into  evil  action,  will, 
when  moral  reflection  commences,  have  a  keener  sense  of 
demerit  than  the  man  who  has  not  been  assailed  by,  or  has 
not  yielded  to,  the  same  temptation.  Then,  secondly,  the 
natural  constitution  of  those  erring  ones  who  have  great  need 
of  repentance  must  be  taken  into  account.  They  are  children 
of  passion :  endowed  with  powerful  impulses,  good  and  bad, 
unharmonised,  warring  against  each  other,  the  flesh  against 
the  spirit,  the  spirit  against  the  flesh,  the  law  in  the  members 
against  the  law  in  the  mind,  and  vice  versA.  Such  natures  are 
capable  of  going  far  wrong,  but  they  are  also  capable,  when  a 
moral  crisis  comes,  often  brought  about  by  their  very  excesses, 
of  being  very  decided  for  the  right.  Men  of  this  stamp,  of 
whom  Paul  may  be  taken  as  the  type,  being  converted,  become 
the  most  devoted  Christians.  It  is  not  merely  that,  having 
abundant  materials  in  their  previous  life  to  supply  a  strong 
sense  of  sin,  they  feel  themselves  more  than  other  men  indebted 
to  Divine  grace,  and  are  therefore  more  intensely  grateful. 
It  is  that  they  have  a  natural  faculty  of  loving,  of  throwing 
themselves  with  abandon  into  all  they  undertake,  beyond  that 
of  ordinary  men.  The  passionate  energy  formerly  employed 
in  doing  evil  is  now  brought  to  the  service  of  righteousness. 
The  sinful  woman  hitherto  the  slave  of  unlawful  passion,  now 
transfers  the  whole  wealth  of  her  affections  to  her  Saviour, 
and  loves  Him  with  a  love  purified,  but  not  less  fervent  than 
the  sinful  love  of  other  days.1  Saul,  the  fierce  persecutor, 
becomes  the  equally  energetic  apostle  of  the  faith  he  once 
destroyed.8    Surely  Jesus,  in  seeking  to  make  disciples  among 

1  "  See,"  says  Euthymius  Zigabenus  ('  in  Quatuor  Evangelia  *) :  "  How 
with  those  things  wherewith  she  was  wont  to  hunt  after  (IWjptvi)  her  own 
destruction,  she  now  hunted  after  (Wijpivin)  salvation ;  for  with  amatory 
tears  and  curiously  plaited  hair  and  myrrh,  she  bewitched  youths,  but 
what  were  before  the  instruments  of  sin  she  now  makes  the  instruments 
of  virtue  "  (rd  irpiv  opyava  ttjs  afiapriaq  opyava  vvv  iriiroiijMV  ipiriji). 

*  That  Paul  was  once  a  Pharisee,  may  seem  to  militate  against  the  view 
that  from  the  ranks  of  Pharisaism  good  samples  of  Christians  were  not 
likely  to  come.  But  exceptio  probat  regulam.  Saul  of  Tarsus  was  by 
education  and  profession  a  Pharisee,  but  he  had  not  the  Pharisaic  nature 
and  temperament.  It  was  inevitable  that  a  man  of  his  moral  energy 
should  one  day  break  with  Pharisaism,  bursting  its  bonds,  as  Samson 
burst  the  green  withs  of  the  Philistines. 


ch.  r]  The  Two  Debtors,  255 

such,  rather  than  among  men  of  frigid  natures  not  likely  to 
do  either  much  evil  or  much  good,  acted  wisely.  Let  us  not 
hesitate  to  say  so,  out  of  fear  lest  some  abuse  the  doctrine. 
We  cannot  afford  to  conceal  the  truth  out  of  regard  to  such. 
It  is  misspent  anxiety  to  have  so  much  regard  to  them.  For 
as  Bunyan  well  remarks:  "These  will  neither  be  ruled  by 
grace  nor  by  reason.  Grace  would  teach  them,  if  they  knew 
it,  to  deny  ungodly  courses :  and  so  would  reason  too,  if  it 
could  truly  understand  the  love  of  God.  Doth  it  look  like 
what  hath  any  coherence  with  reason  or  mercy,  for  a  man  to 
abuse  his  friend  ?  Because  Christ  died  for  men,  must  I  there- 
fore spit  in  his  face  ?  " 1 

It  thus  appears  that  in  the  words  which  He  spoke  in  the 
house  of  Simon  the  Pharisee  Jesus  gave,  in  the  form  of  a 
defence  of  the  sinful  woman,  and  of  a  censure  on  His  host's 
unkindness,  a  complete  vindication  of  his  habitual  policy 
as  the  Founder  of  the  Divine  kingdom.  The  Son  of  man 
came  eating  and  drinking,  living  in  a  fashion  which  threw 
Him  into  contact  with  the  less  reputable  portion  of  Jewish 
society,  and  produced  an  ever-widening  alienation  between 
Him  and  the  socially  and  morally  respectable  class.  For 
this  He  was  much  blamed,  but  the  results  quaintly  hinted 
at  in  the  parable  of  the  two  debtors  proved  that  he  took 
the  course  best  fitted  to  advance  the  great  aim  of  His  life. 
The  wisdom  of  His  conduct  was  justified  at  once  by  the 
great  love  of  the  sinful  woman,  and  by  the  little  love  of 
Simon.  And  the  vindication  of  Christ  is  at  the  same  time 
the  vindication  of  the  course  taken  by  Christianity  at  all 
great  epochs  of  its  history,  and  very  specially  in  the  apostolic 
age.  Speaking  of  the  progress  of  Christianity  in  such  cities 
as  Alexandria,  Antioch,  and  Corinth,  Renan  remarks  :  "  Like 
the  socialisms  of  our  day,  like  all  new  ideas,  Christianity 
germinated  in  what  is  called  the  corruption  of  great  cities." 
The  observation  is  just,  and  the  reflection  appended  to 
it  is  not  less  so :  "  That  corruption,  in  truth,  is  often  only 
a  life  more  full  and  free,  a  more  powerful  awakening  of  the 
innermost  forces  of  humanity."  2  All  is  not  bad  that  is  to 
be  met  with  among  "  publicans  and  sinners ; "  there  lies 
waste  a  wealth  of  moral  energy  which,  properly  directed, 
1  'The  Jerusalem  Sinner  Saved.'  ■  '  Saint  Paul,'  p.  334. 


256         The  Parabolic    Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  ii. 

will  do  excellent  service  for  the  kingdom  of  God.  Therefore, 
the  followers  of  Jesus,  when  they  understand  their  true 
interest,  are  not  grieved  when  the  kingdom  suffereth  violence 
at  the  hands  of  those  whom  the  wise  and  prudent  and 
morally  respectable  regard  askance,  and  the  violent  take  it 
by  force,  knowing  that  the  force  displayed  in  storming  the 
kingdom  will  all  be  available  for  its  advancement.1 

Having  finished  his  eloquent  panegyric  on  the  sinful 
woman's  love,  Jesus  turned  to  her  and  said :  "  Thy  sins  are 
forgiven."2  From  this  it  has  been  inferred  that  up  to  the 
moment  when  these  words  were  spoken  the  woman  did  not 
know  that  her  sins  were  forgiven.3  The  inference  indicates 
a  very  inadequate  conception  of  the  position  in  which  the 
poor  penitent  was  placed  in  the  house  of  Simon,  which  was 
such  as  to  make  confirmation  of  her  faith  or  hope  of  pardon 
very  needful,  even  assuming  that  she  had  cherished  such 
before,  as  the  parable  implies  she  had.  How  chilling  and 
discouraging  to  the  contrite  heart,  the  unsympathetic,  or 
even  loathing,  looks  of  the  company !  How  hard  in  such  a 
company  on  earth,  where  is  no  joy  over  a  sinner  repenting, 
to  believe  that  there  is  such  joy  even  in  heaven !  By  our 
sympathy,  or  the  want  of  it,  we  can  much  help  or  hinder 
faith  in  the  forgiveness  of  sins.  For  this  woman  there  was 
no  sympathy  in  Simon's  house,  save  in  the  heart  of  Jesus. 
Therefore  Jesus,  knowing  this  full  well,  felt  it  all  the  more 
necessary  that  He  should  make  a  decided  demonstration  ol 

1  When  one  considers  how  much  profound  far-reaching  thought  is 
hidden  in  this  simple  parable,  he  cannot  but  be  sensible  of  the  incompar- 
able excellence  of  Christ' sparables  as  contrasted  with  those  of  the  rabbis. 
The  rabbis  also  had  their  parable  of  Two  Debtors  to  explain  how  it  came 
to  pass  that  Israel,  while  loved  by  God  more  than  all  other  nations,  was 
most  punished  for  her  sins.  In  the  rabbinical  parable  the  creditor  accepts 
payment  from  one  of  his  debtors  in  small  instalments,  and  so  facilitates 
payment  in  full.  From  the  other  he  exacts  nothing  till  he  fails,  and  then 
he  demands  the  whole  at  once.  The  question  is  thereon  put,  Which  of 
the  two  is  most  favourably  treated  ?  The  parable  in  itself  is  passable,  but 
its  moral  is  commonplace.  The  excellence  of  our  Lord's  parables,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  that  by  the  most  obvious  analogies  truths  unfamiliar  and 
hard  to  be  believed  are  made  to  appear  intelligible,  rational,  and  credible 
Rabbinical  parables  are  nuts  which  on  being  cracked  ar»  found  to  be 
empty.     For  the  above  parable  see  Weill,  4  Le  Judaisme,'  vol.  i.  p.  1 58. 

1  Ver.  48.  "  So  Trench,  p.  306. 


Ch.  i.]  The  Two  Debtors.  257 

His  sympathy  and  assure  the  penitent  that  though  there  wa3 
no  forgiveness  with  men,  there  was  forgiveness  with  God  ; 
and  so,  with  a  firm,  cheerful,  sympathetic  voice,  He  said, 
"  Thy  sins  are  forgiven." l 

This  friendly  word,  like  all  the  words  spoken  by  Jesus, 
and  His  whole  bearing  on  this  occasion,  were  out  of  harmony 
with  the  spirit  of  the  company.  His  fellow-guests  showed  by 
their  looks  that  the  thought  of  their  heart  was  :  Who  is  this 
who  also  forgiveth  sins,  so  committing  a  greater  offence  than 
is  that  of  receiving  sinners,  the  one  being  an  offence  against 
piety,  while  the  other  is  only  an  offence  against  morality  ? 
Treating  this  new  exhibition  of  the  censorious  spirit  with 
magnanimous  disdain,  and  caring  only  for  the  spiritual  well- 
being  of  the  penitent,  Jesus  repeated  his  assurance  in  another 
form,  and  bade  her  farewell  with  the  cheering  words  :  "  Thy 
faith  hath  saved  thee  ;  go  in  peace."  *  Certain  critics,  it  is 
true,  tell  us  that  these  words  must  be  set  down  to  the  credit 
of  the  evangelist,  and  that  we  ought  to  see  in  them,  as  in 
some  other  features  of  this  narrative,  traces  of  his  Paulinist 
tendency.3  Now  the  sentiment  is  certainly  thoroughly 
Pauline,  but  it  is  also  thoroughly  in  keeping  with  the 
teaching  of  Jesus.  Jesus  not  less  than  Paul,  according  to 
me  concurrent  testimony  of  all  the  evangelists,  gave  great 
prominence  to  faith,  and  repeatedly  expressed  His  delight 
in  signal  manifestations  thereof,  and  this  is  only  what  we 
should  expect  when  we  consider  that  the  kingdom  of  God, 
as  presented  to  view  in  the  teaching  of  our  Lord,  is  essentially 
a  kingdom  of  grace.  The  ideas  of  faith  and  of  grace  are 
kindred,  and  He  who  knew  so  well  how  to  exhibit  the 
gracious  aspect  of  God  was  sure  to  magnify  the  importance 
and  the  power  of  faith.  And  we  have  here  one  of  the 
instances  in  which  Jesus  did  most  signally  magnify  faith's 
power  to  save.  The  statement  is  not  to  be  restricted  to 
the  one  blessing  of  the  forgiveness  of  sins.  Jesus  meant  to 
say  that  faith  would  do,  had  already  done  in  principle,  for 
the  sinful  mortal  before  Him  all  that  needed  to  be  done  in 
order  to  a  complete  moral  rescue.     Faith,  working  by  love, 

*  Arndt  says :  "This  word  was  needed  as  consolation  for  the  humili- 
ation ^  experienced  in  the  house  of  Simon." 
■  Ver.  5*  *  Vide  Hilgenfeld, '  Einleitung,'  p.  560. 

S 


258         The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book.  II. 

would  purify  her  heart,  ennoble  her  life,  and,  what  was  very 
necessary,  protect  her  against  the  demoralising  influence  of 
social  scorn  which  dooms  so  many  '  sinners '  to  perdition. 
It  was  a  bold  assertion  to  make,  but  the  confidence  of  Jesus 
in  the  power  of  faith  was  justified  by  what  it  had  already 
done.  Had  not  a  believing  reception  of  the  glad  tidings 
filled  her  soul  with  inexpressible  love  to  the  Preacher  and 
to  the  Father  in  heaven  whose  grace  He  revealed :  had  it 
not  transformed  her  into  a  poet,  a  devotee,  a  heroine,  capable 
of  conventionality-defying  demonstrations  —  those  gushing 
tears,  the  drying  of  the  feet  of  her  Redeemer  with  her  hair, 
the  fervent  kissing  of  His  feet,  and  the  anointing  of  them 
with  ointment  ?  Here  already  was  a  new  spiritual  creation 
all  due  to  faith,  producing  through  the  nature  of  the  thing 
believed  and  its  priceless  value  to  the  recipient  intense 
gratitude,  which  by  deeds  more  eloquent  than  words  said: 
"  O  Lord,  truly  I  am  thy  servant,  I  am  thy  servant ;  thou 
hast  loosed  my  bonds." x  Well  might  Jesus  say,  "  Thy  faith 
hath  saved  thee,"  for  a  more  complete  demonstration  of  the 
recuperative  ennobling  power  of  that  faculty  through  which 
we  let  God's  grace  flow  into  our  hearts  cannot  be  imagined. 
And  what  faith  had  done  it  might  easily  continue  to  do. 
The  main  difficulty  lies  in  the  beginning.  Faith  has  already 
cast  out  the  devils  of  evil  passion  and  put  Christ  in  their 
place ;  has  already  dared  to  face  Pharisaic  contempt.  It 
will  be  able  hereafter  to  keep  out  the  demons  of  desire  which 
have  been  cast  out  by  the  expulsive  power  of  a  new  affection, 
and  to  bear  with  equanimity  the  light  esteem  of  a  world 
which  regards  the  sins  of  the  past  as  unpardonable.  There- 
fore we  may  not  doubt  that  when  she  left  that  house  she 
went  away  into  abiding  peace,  very  probably  to  join  the 
company  of  those  of  whom  the  evangelist  speaks  in  the 
commencement  of  the  next  chapter  as  following  Jesus  and 
ministering  unto  him  of  their  substance.* 

1  Psalm  cxvi.  16. 

*  Luke  viii.  1—3.  It  is  noticeable  that  the  evangelist  begins  this 
chapter  as  if  he  were  continuing  the  previous  narrative.  He  does  not 
name  Jesus  but  uses  the  pronoun :  "  It  came  to  pass  aftei  mtfds  that  Hi 
went,"  &c 


CHAPTER  IT. 

THE  LOST  SHEEP,  THE  LOST  COIN,  AND  THE  LOST  SOU  | 
OR,  THE  JOY  OF  FINDING  PERSONS  AND  THINGS  LOST. 

THE  manner  in  which  Luke  introduces  these  three  parables  fs 
such  as  to  indicate,  not  the  particular  occasion,  but  the  kind 
of  occasion  on  which  they  were  spoken.  The  words,  "  Now 
there  were  approaching  Him  all  the  publicans  and  the 
sinners,  to  hear  Him,"  could  scarcely  be  used  with  reference 
to  any  one  time.  What  is  described  is  a  prominent  feature 
in  the  ministry  of  Jesus,  ever  growing  more  conspicuous,  and 
arresting  the  attention  and  provoking  the  criticism  of  unsym- 
pathetic observers,  viz.  the  interest  awakened  thereby  in  the 
minds  of  the  classes  in  evil  repute,  and  the  gracious  manner 
in  which  Jesus  regarded  those  by  whom  that  interest  was 
manifested.1  That  the  Evangelist  has  correctly  indicated  the 
general  nature  of  the  occasion  of  the  parables  recorded  in  the 
fifteenth  chapter  of  his  Gospel,  is  evident  at  a  glance.  On  the 
very  face  of  them  these  charming  parables  are  an  apology  for 
-loving  and  receiving  the  sinful — forming  a  part,  and,  we  may 
add,  the  crowning  part  of  Christ's  inimitable  defence  for  that 
noble  crime  committed  by  Him  against  the  conventional  law 
and  custom  of  contemporary  Jewish  society.  The  use  made 
by  Matthew 2  of  the  first  of  the  three  parables — that  of  the 
Lost  Sheep — in  introducing  it  into  the  discourse  on  Humility, 
to  teach  the  truth  that  God  cares  for  the  lowly  and  insignifi- 
cant, is  legitimate ;  but  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  parable,  in 
that  connection,  falls  short  of  its  full  significance  and  pathoSg 

*  Vide  Hofmann,  '  Das  Evangelium  des  Lukas,'  p.  382. 

*  Chap,  xviti.  12. 

82 


260  The  Parabolic    Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  il 

as  also,  and  perhaps  just  in  consequence  of  that,  of  its  original 
literary  grace.  For  Divine  love  is  seen  at  its  maximum,  not 
in  caring  for  the  lowly,  but  in  caring  for  the  low ;  and  it  was 
when  speaking  of  this  intensest  and  most  pathetic  manifest- 
ation of  love,  that  the  mind  of  Jesus  was  likely  to  conceive 
the  parabolic  representation  of  love's  gracious  impulses  in  its 
most  felicitous  form,  including  the  feature  of  the  shepherd 
carrying  the  erring  sheep  on  his  shoulders,  omitted  by  Matthew, 
which  we  cannot  doubt  belonged  to  the  parable  as  originally 
spoken.1 

We  have  as  little  doubt  that  these  three  parables,  related 
by  Luke  at  one  gush,  were  all  spoken  at  the  same  time ;  albeit 
the  third  is  introduced  in  a  very  loose  way  with  the  vague 
phrase,  "  And  He  said,"  '  suggesting  the  idea  that  what  follows 
is  an  annex  to  what  goes  before.  Accumulation  of  parables 
teaching  one  lesson  was  certainly  not  a  usual  practice  with 
Christ,  but  on  the  present  occasion  it  was  fitted  to  serve  an 
important  apologetic  purpose.  Multiplication  of  instances  of 
rejoicing  over  things  or  persons  lost  tended  to  convey  the 
impression  that  such  joy  was  universal,  a  touch  of  nature 
in  which  the  whole  world  was  kin.  Jesus  thereby  arrayed 
against  his  critics  all  mankind,  people  of  all  ranks,  conditions, 
and  relations :  men,  women,  shepherds,  housewives,  fathers, 
householders,  domestics  ;  saying  in  effect  to  the  sour,  cynical 
fault-finders  :  Are  ye  not  men  ? — have  ye  not  human  hearts 
that  I  should  need  to  explain  to  you  so  simple  a  matter? 
Multiplied  illustration  was  thus  an  essential  part  of  the 
argument.8 

1  Ewald  remarks  that  Matthew's  form  of  the  parable  wants  den  schonen 
Farbenschmels,  which  it  has  in  Luke.  Weizsacker,  on  the  other  hand, 
thinks  Matthew  gives  the  parable  in  at  least  the  original  connection ;  its 
design,  according  to  him,  being  to  apologise  for  despised  ones  against  the 
grudges  of  Christ's  own  disciples. — '  Untersuchungen,'  p.  501. 

8  tlieti  J4,  v.  11. 

8  Hofmann  thinks  the  third  parable  was  spoken  on  a  similar,  but  not 
on  the  same,  occasion. — '  Das  Evang.  des  Lukas,'  p.  386.  Assuming  that 
they  were  all  spoken  on  the  same  occasion,  the  effect  would  be  to  suggest 
that  such  illustrations  might  be  multiplied  ad  libitum.  Augustine,  in  his 
Confessions,'  cap.  viii.  3,  supplies  a  sample  of  how  this  might  be  done. 
One  might  have  expected  more  from  him,  a  prodigal  returned  to  hil 
father's  house,  than  this  commonplace  service  in  such  a  book. 


ch.  ii.]  The  Lost  Sheep,  Lost  Coin,  and  Lost  Son.  261 

This  consideration  may  be  regarded  as  conclusive  in  favour 
of  the  view  that  a  plurality  of  parables,  exemplifying  the  law 
of  human  nature  according  to  which  a  peculiar  joy  is  felt  in 
connection  with  the  finding  of  things  lost,  was  d  priori  to  be 
expected.     But  it  may  be  asked,  On  what  principle  is  the 
second  of  the  three  parables  to  be  justified,  which,  in  com- 
parison with  the  first,  seems  inferior,  and  as  coming  after  it 
superfluous  ?     By  itself  it  might  be  well  enough,  bat  placed 
beside  the  other  two,  is  it  not  deprived  of  all  interest,  so  as 
to  make  it  very  doubtful  that  it  was  uttered  at  the  same 
time?     Such  an  objection  would  indicate  a  very  imperfect 
comprehension  of  the  moral  situation.     The  very  paltriness  of 
the  second  parable  is  what  gives  it  its  value.     The  story  of 
the  housewife  finding  a  piece  of  money  worth  little  more  than 
a  sixpence,  and  rejoicing  over  the  discovery,  serves  to  suggest  \ 
the  thought,  that  it  does  not  require  things  of  great  value  to  , 
call  into  play  the  tendency  of  human  nature  to  rejoice  in 
finding  things  lost.     And,  be  it  noted,  such  a  suggestion  was 
most  pertinent  to  the  purpose  for  which  all    these  parables  | 
were  spoken,  viz.  to  defend  the  conduct  of  Jesus  in  taking  a 
warm  interest  in  the  moral  recovery  of  the  degraded.     For, ' 
in  the  view  of  the  fault-finders,  publicans  and  'sinners'  were 
infinitely  insignificant.     The  conversion  of  one  belonging  to 
these   classes   to   wisdom    and    righteousness   was,    in   their 
esteem,  all  but  an  impossibility,  and  even  should  it  occur,  of 
no  consequence.      That  Christ  did  not  share  their  despair 
and  indifference  was  what  they  could  not  comprehend,  was 
so  incomprehensible  that  they  felt  shut  up  to  account  for  the 
fact  by  imputing  to  Him  sinister  motives.     As  addressed  to 
such   an   audience,  the   parable   of  the  lost   sheep  was  not 
unlikely  to  fail  of  its  purpose  ;  for  in  Pharisaic  esteem  a  man 
of  the  despised  classes  was  not  so  valuable  as  a  sheep.1     If 
there  were  such  a  thing  in  the  history  of  humanity  as  joy 
over  the  finding  of  a  lost  sixpence,  a  parable  to  that  effect 
might  serve  the  turn  better,  for  probably  the  Pharisees  would 
allow  that  a  small  coin  was  not  unfit  to  represent  the  value  of 

1  Goebel  thinks  the  parable  of  the  lost  sheep  contains  an  argument  4 
fortiori,  on  the  principle :  «  How  much  better  is  a  man  than  a  sheep." 
Unfortunately  the  principle  was  practically  denied,  so  that  the  argument 
would  not  be  felt  to  be  &  fortiori. 


26a  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  it. 

a  publican.  That  joy  of  the  kind  described  was  by  no  means 
unexampled  in  Judaea  in  those  days  we  may  well  believe, 
when  we  consider  the  many  indications  of  abject  poverty 
contained  in  the  Gospels  to  which  this  same  parable  of  the 
lost  coin  may  be  added.1  The  parable,  therefore,  did  not 
violate  natural  probability ;  and  if  not,  it  certainly  was  in 
other  respects  most  apposite,  as  virtually  involving  the  argu- 
ment :  many  poor  housewives  have  genuine  joy  in  finding  a 
lost  coin  of  small  amount ;  is  it  so  very  surprising  that  I 
should  experience  similar  joy  when  a  lost  sinner,  no  matter 
how  insignificant  socially,  repents,  that  I  should  deem  the 
meanest  of  mankind  worth  saving,  and  his  salvation  a  cause 
of  satisfaction  ?  * 

The  two  foregoing  considerations — the  cumulative  force  of 
the  three  parables,  and  the  peculiar  appositeness  of  the  second 
to  the  moral  situation — are  of  prime  importance  as  enabling 
us  to  understand  the  general  drift  and  exact  point  of  these 
parables,  regarded,  as  they  ought  in  the  first  place  to  be, 
from  the  apologetic  point  of  view.  If  the  chosen  point  of 
view  were  the  didactic  or  dogmatic,  we  might  set  ourselves, 
after  the  fashion  of  some  interpreters,  to  discover  reasons  for 
there  being  three  parables,  and  three  just  such  as  those 
recorded ;  one  about  a  shepherd,  a  second  about  a  housewife, 
and  a  third  about  a  father;  and  to  ascertain  the  recondite 
theological  lessons  distinctively  taught  by  each.  We  have 
no  objections  to  such  lines  of  study,  and  are  willing  to  allow 
that  here,  as  elsewhere,  they  may  serve  the  good  purpose  of 
bringing  out  into  relief  the  felicity  of  the  parables  in  suggest- 
ing thoughts  which  they  are  not  primarily  intended  to  teach. 
But  for  our  own  part,  we  prefer  the  historical  to  the  dogmatic 
or  mystic  method  of  interpretation,  and  therefore  mean  to 
keep  close  throughout  to  the  original  apologetic  aim,  and 
to  give  greatest  prominence  to  those  thoughts  which  serve 
to  show  how  the  parables  bear  thereon.  We  do  not,  there- 
fore, ask  ourselves,  Why  precisely  these  parables  ?     We  are 

»  Vide  note  in  last  chapter  containing  extract  from  Hausrath  on  this 

subject. 

8  Unger  takes  this  view  of  the  argumentative  import  of  the  second 
parable :  in  qua  auctior  adeo  apparet  probans  ilia  gradatio  qmtenus 
intendit,  solium  in  exigua  adeo  re  perdita  curam. — 'De  Parab.'  p   148. 


ch.  if.]  The  Lost  Sheep  y  Lost  Coin,  and  Lost  Son.  263 

content  to  regard  the  first  parable  as  the  standard  one,  as  it 
is  most  akin  to  Christ's  professed  character  as  a  Shepherd 
who  was  in  quest  of  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel ; 
and  the  second  as  a  supplement  to  the  first,  rendered  neces- 
sary by  the  contemptuous  feelings  of  the  Pharisees  towards 
the  lower  orders,  and  meant  to  teach  that  the  law  of  joy^ 
over  things  lost  obtains  in  reference  even  to  things  of  little 
value ;  and  the  third  as  meant  to  exemplify  the  action  of  the 
same  law  in  the  human  sphere,  and  to  suggest  the  great 
truth,  that  even  the  meanest  of  mankind  is,  at  the  worst, 
only  a  degraded  son  of  God,  whose  repentance  ought  there- 
fore to  be  an  occasion  of  joy  to  all  who  love  God.  Nor  do 
we  find  any  mystery  in  the  numbers — one  hundred,  ten,  two. 
The  hundred  sheep  are  the  property  of  a  shepherd  of  ordinary 
average  wealth ;  the  ten  pieces  of  money  the  pecuniary 
possession  of  a  woman  in  humble  life ;  the  two  sons  signify 
a  family  just  large  enough  to  supply  illustrations  of  the  two 
contrasted  characters,  and  concentrate  attention  upon  them. 
In  one  respect  only  do  we  feel  disposed  to  accentuate 
the  distinctive  didactic  significance  of  the  parables,  viz.  in 
regard  to  the  different  senses  of  the  term  'lost'  employed 
in  them  all.  We  reserve  our  remarks  on  this  point  till  the 
close. 

There  is  one  aspect  of  these  parables  closely  connected  with 
their  apologetic  use  to  which  we  have  not  yet  referred,  and  of 
which  we  must  here  take  notice.  In  all  three  there  is  apparent 
not  merely  a  defensive,  but  an  offensive,  attitude.  Christ  not 
only  apologises  for  His  misunderstood  love,  but  rebukes  the 
Pharisees  for  their  want  of  sympathy  with  such  love  as  inspired 
His  conduct,  and  the  inhumanity  therein  revealed.  The 
shepherd  not  only  himself  rejoices  over  his  lost  sheep,  but  he 
calls  on  his  neighbours  and  friends  to  sympathise  with  his  joy, 
and  it  is  taken  for  granted  that  they  do  so.  The  same  holds 
true  of  the  woman  who  lost  and  found  the  piece  of  money. 
These  two  parables  showed  the  Pharisees  how  they  ought  to ' 
have  acted  towards  Jesus  as  the  friend  of  the  publicans  and. 
sinners.  The  third  parable  assails  them  in  another  way,  not 
by  showing  them  how  they  ought  to  have  acted,  but  by 
showing;  them  how  they  did  act.  The  elder  brother  in  the 
parable  is  the  Pharisee's  picture,  and  the  elaboration  of  this 


264  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  11. 

part  of  the  story  shows  how  distinctly  the  purpose  to  attack 
and  rebuke  was  present  to  Christ's  mind.1  But  having 
pointed  this  out,  we  must  at  the  same  time  point  out  another 
fact  in  a  preliminary  way,  reserving  details  for  a  more  ad- 
vanced stage.  The  exposure  of  Pharisaic  inhumanity,  though 
unavoidably  severe,  is  markedly  mild  and  conciliatory  in 
tone.  Jesus  had  no  wish  to  exasperate  His  critics ;  His 
heart  was  too  sad  to  indulge  in  bitterness.  Throughout,  He 
aims,  on  the  one  hand,  so  to  depict  the  publicans  and  sinners 
as  to  awaken  pity,  and  on  the  other,  so  to  speak  of  the 
Pharisees  as,  while  pointing  out  clearly  to  them  their  character- 
istic vice,  if  possible  tc  win  them  to  a  better  mind.  The 
Saviour  spoke  these  exquisite  parables  in  a  tender,  gracious 
mood,  as  one  who  would  by  the  very  words  he  uttered  be  a 
healer  of  social  breaches,  and  reconciler  of  alienated  classes. 
These  parables,  and  especially  the  last  of  the  three,  are  thus, 
as  it  were,  a  prelude  to  the  cross.  Heavenly  charity  enacts  in 
word  the  part  of  a  peace-maker,  which  it  afterwards  enacted 
in  the  death  on  Calvary.  When  we  read  these  parables  we 
wonder  not  at  the  spectacle  presented  in  the  crucifixion  ;  for 
the  love  which  could  inspire  such  touching  utterances  in  the 
interest  of  redeeming  love  could  also,  if  needful,  die.  Jesus 
said  of  the  anointing  in  Bethany,  "  she  did  it  for  My  burial." 
We  may  say  of  these  irenical  parables  that  they  were  spoken 
against  the  day  of  the  Passion. 

With  these  remarks  we  proceed  to  the  consideration  of  the 
individual  parables,  and  first  that  of— 

THE  LOST   SHEEP. 

He  spake  to  them  this  parable,  saying  :  What  man  of  you  having  an  hun- 
dred sheep,  and  having  lost  one  of  them,  doth  not  leave  the  ninety  and 
nine  in  the  wilderness,2  and  go  after  the  lost  one,  until  he  find  it  t 
And  having  found  it,  he  layeth  it  upon  his  shoulders  rejoicing.  And 
on  arriving  at  his  house,  he  calleth  together  his  friends  and  neigh- 

1  Goebel's  exposition  has  the  merit  of  duly  emphasising  the  offensive 
aspect  of  the  three  parables. 

*  Iv  ry  Ipwtw,  in  the  pastoral  country  where  sheep  might  feed,  but  where 
grain  was  not  cultivated.  In  Matthew  the  phrase  is  lirl  rd  fyq,  on  the 
mountains. 


ch.  ii.]  The  Lost  Sheep,  265 

hours,  saying  to  them  :  Rejoice  with  me,  for  1  have  found  my  sheep 
which  was  lost.  I  say  unto  you,  that  likewise  joy  shall  be  in  hxaven 
over  one  sinner  repenting,  more  than  over  ninety  and  nine  just  per- 
sons such  as  have  not  need  of  repentance. — Luke  xv.  3 — 7. 

THERE  is  much  latent  pathos  in  this  short  parable  which  it  is 
desirable  we  should  make  an  effort  to  perceive,  that  we  may 
be  prepared  to  understand  the  shepherd's  demand  for  sym- 
pathy, which,  on  a  superficial  reading  of  the  story,  before  we 
have  penetrated  to  its  heart,  may  appear  exaggerated.  The 
chief  interest,  of  course,  centres  in  the  shepherd,  and  his  be- 
haviour on  one  of  his  sheep  being  found  missing.  And  in  the 
first  place,  it  is  taken  for  granted  that  any  shepherd  to  whom 
this  happens  will  immediately  set  off  in  quest  of  the  erring 
sheep.  "  What  man  of  you  having  a  flock  of  sheep,  and  losing 
one,  will  not  go  after  it  ? "  asks  Jesus,  confident  that  here  at 
least  He  will  meet  with  no  contradiction,  virtually  asserting 
that  it  is  a  universal  human  instinct  to  go  in  quest  of  lost 
property.  This  implied  assertion  is  in  truth  the  radical  part 
of  His  apology  for  His  own  conduct.  As  in  the  earliest 
instance  in  which  He  was  put  on  His  defence  he  vindicated 
Himself  by  the  suggestion,  "  I  am  a  Physician,"  so  in  the  pre- 
sent instance  He  offers  as  His  apology  the  suggestion, "  I  am  a 
Shepherd  ; "  and  as  in  the  former  case  so  in  the  latter,  the 
suggestion  being  once  accepted  all  the  rest  follows  of  course. 
No  one  wonders  that  a  shepherd  goes  after  his  straying  sheep, 
any  more  than  one  wonders  that  a  physician  visits  the  sick 
rather  than  the  whole,  and  visits  most  frequently  those  whose 
ailments  are  most  serious.  Neither  is  any  one  surprised  at  the 
joy  of  a  shepherd  on  finding  his  sheep,  which  is  the  special 
feature  insisted  on  in  the  present  parable  ;  the  most  cynical  will 
admit  that  the  finding  of  a  lost  sheep  is  a  most  legitimate 
occasion  of  satisfaction  to  the  finder  himself  at  least,  and  there- 
fore a  perfectly  reasonable  motive  for  seeking  the  lost.  Such 
joy  in  a  shepherd,  and  we  may  add  similar  joy  in  a  physician 
on  succeeding  in  restoring  a  patient  to  health,  Christ's  Pharisaic 
censors  were  not  so  stupid  as  to  condemn.  Their  want  of 
sympathy  with  Him  as  the  friend  of  publicans  and  sinners 
sprang  from  their  failure  to  recognise  in  Him  a  Physician  and 
a  Shepherd.  And  that  failure  again  was  due  to  their  own 
want  of  love  for  their  fellow-men.     Their  hearts  were  hardened 


266         The  Parabolic    Teaching  of  Christ,   [book  il 

against  the  social  outcasts  by  prejudice  and  pride,  and  there- 
fore when  they  saw  the  common  people  scattered  and  torn * 
like  a  flock  of  sheep  without  a  shepherd,  the  spectacle  did  not 
make  their  hearts  bleed  as  it  made  the  heart  of  Jesus  bleed. 
And  that  made  all  the  difference.  Jesus,  seeing  the  miserable 
plight  of  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel,  sought  to  be  a 
Shepherd  to  them  and  associated  with  Himself  in  the  pastoral 
care  of  the  people  His  disciples  ;2  while  the  Pharisees,  on  the 
other  hand,  neither  cared  themselves  for  the  lost,  nor  sym- 
pathised with,  or  even  so  much  as  believed  in,  the  loving  care 
of  others. 

The  next  feature  in  the  shepherd's  conduct  is  that  he  seeks 
////  he  finds}  He  is  thoroughly  in  earnest  in  the  search  ;  he 
is  determined  to  recover  his  lost  property,  and  will  spare  him- 
self no  trouble  for  that  end.  This  touch  is  omitted  in 
Matthew's  version  of  the  parable,  where  we  read  instead  the 
expression,  "  if  he  happen  to  find  it ; "  *  but  who  can  doubt 
that  it  belongs  to  the  original  form  of  the  parable  as  first 
uttered  ?  Jesus  was  a  very  earnest  Shepherd  Himself,  who 
spared  no  pains  to  find  the  lost  sheep  of  God's  fold,  and  he 
was  not  likely  to  omit  this  trait  in  the  portrait  of  the  shep- 
herd's character.  It  is  true  that  the  most  earnest  quest  may 
after  all,  end  in  failure,  and  therefore  such  a  phrase  as  "  if  so 
be  he  find  "  is  perfectly  legitimate  and  appropriate.  Jesus 
Himself  knew  too  well  what  such  failure  was,  and  therefore  it 
is  quite  possible  that  in  repeating  the  parable,  if  He  did  repeat 
it,  He  gave  prominence  to  that  aspect.  But  it  is  certain  that 
if  there  is  to  be  failure  it  will  not  be  for  want  of  effort  and 
pains  on  the  shepherd's  part.  There  will  be  persistent  search 
in  every  quarter  where  there  is  the  least  chance  of  the  lost 
being  found.  How  true  is  this  of  Christ  Himself  I  He  could 
say  for  Himself  as  the  Shepherd  of  Israel,  "  How  often  would 
I  have  gathered  thee !  "  6  and  His  failure  after  all  His  efforts 
broke  His  heart  and  made  Him  shed  bitter  tears.  This 
phrase,  until  he  find  it,  is  a  touch  we  owe  to  the  pastoral  love 
of  the  speaker,  as  the  spiritual  Shepherd  of  men. 

1  Matt.  ix.  36. 

*  Matt,  x.,  which  relates  the  mission  of  the  twelve  to  the  people  of 
Galilee.  •  *wc  tvpy  airro. 

*  kav  ysvijra  tvptiv,     (Matt,  xviii.  1 3.)  •  Matt.  xxiiL  38. 


ch.  ii.]  The  Lost  Sheep.  267 

Having  found  the  straying  sheep,  the  shepherd  layetk  it 
upon  his  shoulders.  This  possibly  he  would  do  in  any  case, 
however  short  the  distance  the  sheep  had  strayed  from  the 
fold,  to  make  sure  of  his  captive ;  but  this  feature  in  the 
picture  most  probably  points  to  exhaustion  produced  by  long- 
continued  wandering,  exposure,  and  lack  of  food.  The  erring 
sheep  needs  to  be  carried,  it  cannot  return  on  its  own  feet ; 
the  shepherd  finds  it  with  torn  fleece,  lying  on  the  ground, 
emaciated,  helplessly  weak.  This  is  intrinsically  probable, 
even  had  we  nothing  but  the  language  of  the  parable  itself  to 
guide  us ;  it  becomes  almost  certain  when  we  bear  in  mind 
the  terms  in  which  Jesus  described  the  state  of  the  people  at 
the  time  of  the  Galilean  mission.  To  His  compassionate  eye 
the  lower  masses  of  Jewish  society  appeared  torn  and  scattered 
about, — weary,  worn,  abject,1 — like  sheep  without  a  shepherd; 
therefore  he  sent  His  disciples  among  them  to  preach  the 
good  tidings  of  the  kingdom  and  to  heal  their  diseases,  deem- 
ing it  better  they  should  have  the  benefit  of  inexperienced 
care  than  that  they  should  continue  longer  utterly  uncared 
for.  He  had  the  same  people  in  the  same  miserable  condition 
in  view  when  He  spake  this  parable.  The  straying  sheep 
of  our  parable  represents  the  neglected,  perishing  masses  of 
the  people,  is  one  of  the  scattered  and  torn.  Jesus  thinks 
of  it  now,  as  He  thought  of  the  people  on  that  other  occasion 
— would  have  His  hearers  so  think  of  it,  as  found  by  the 
shepherd  in  a  pitiable  plight ;  for  His  own  heart  is  now  as 
full  of  compassion  as  it  was  then,  and  He  desires  to  awaken 
compassion  in  the  hard  hearts  of  His  audience,  that  they  may 
cease  to  blame  Him,  and  begin  rather  to  imitate  Him  by 
compassionate  consideration  for  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house 
of  Israel. 

So  the  shepherd  has  to  carry  his  captive  all  the  way  back 
to  the  fold,  and  has  to  carry  it  a  long  way.  Nevertheless  he 
lays  it  on  his  shoulders,  rejoicing,  heeding  not  the  weight, 
nor  the  fatiguing  journey  before  him,  for  gladness  over  the 
recovery  of  his  lost  property.  Love  makes  the  burden  light, 
and  the  way  short.  This  feature  is  true  to  natural  life,  and 
not  less  true  to  the  character  of  the  Good  Shepherd,  the 
author  of  the  parable.     The  Son  of  man  had  heavy  burdens 

1  Matt,  ix  36.     jffKt/X/Jsvot  km  ippifmivoi. 


fl68  Tlie  Parabolic    Teaching  of  Christ,   [book  ii. 

laid  on  His  heart  by  that  unspeakable  sympathy  with  the 
woes  of  humanity  which  is  so  conspicuous  in  His  history.  The 
diseases  of  men,  their  poverty,  their  sins,  their  ignorance,  their 
pains,  their  hopeless  misery  —  all  pressed  on  His  spirit 
"  Surely  he  hath  borne  our  griefs,  and  carried  our  sorrows," 
and  so  was  a  "  Man  of  sorrows,  and  acquainted  with  grief." 
Yet  withal  there  was  a  wondrous  gladness  in  the  heart  of 
Christ.  He  experienced  a  perfect  rapture  of  delight  when 
He  found  a  lost  sheep :  witness  His  bearing  at  the  well  of 
Sychar,  when  His  joy  over  the  repentance  of  the  woman  of 
Samaria  made  Him  forget  hunger,  insomuch  that  the  disciples 
wondered  if  any  man  had  given  Him  to  eat.1  That  joy, 
hoped  for  or  experienced,  made  all  His  burdens  light ;  made 
even  the  cross  itself,  abhorrent  to  His  sentient  nature,  more 
than  bearable.  Therefore,  in  drawing  the  picture  of  a  faithful 
shepherd,  He  might  with  a  good  conscience  put  in  this  trait, 
'rejoicing.' 

The  weary,  fatiguing  journey  at  length  comes  to  an  end ; 
and  naturally,  on  arriving  at  his  home,  there  is  a  new  rush 
of  emotion  in  the  shepherd's  heart,  and  an  eventful  story  to 
tell,  and  a  craving  for  friendly  neighbourly  sympathy.  This 
accordingly  is  the  next  feature  in  the  parable :  "  When  he 
cometh  home,  he  callefh  together  his  friends  and  neighbours 
saying  unto  them,  Rejoice  with  me ;  for  I  have  found  my 
sheep  which  was  lost."  This  is  the  point  in  the  parable  at 
which  our  sense  of  its  fitness  or  naturalness  is  apt  to  be 
weakest.  Is  there  not,  we  are  ready  to  ask,  something  resem- 
bling effeminate  sentimentalism  in  that  calling  of  friends  and 
neighbours  together,  and  that  demand  for  sympathy  with  the 
joy  of  finding  the  lost  sheep  ?  Would  it  not  have  been  more 
manly  and  more  shepherd-like  to  have  returned  quietly  to 
ordirary  duties  as  if  nothing  had  happened  ?  Have  we  not 
reason  to  suspect  that  at  this  point  the  natural  realism  of  the 
parable  has  been  sacrificed  to  the  feelings  of  the  speaker 
smarting  under  a  keen  sense  of  the  general  lack  of  sympathy 
with  His  own  aims,  and  eager  to  reproach  the  Pharisees  on 
that  account?  Now  in  meeting  these  objections  we  assume 
the  truth  of  the  interpretation  we  have  put  on  the  previous 
points  of  the  parable ;  that  is  to  say,  that  the  parable  has 
1  John  iv.  31 — 34. 


ch.  ii.]  The  Lost  Sheep.  2,69 

reference  tc  a  serious  occurrence,  and  not  merely  to  an  insig- 
nificant everyday  case  of  wandering  for  a  short  distance  from 
the  fold.  We  are  entitled  to  assume  this,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  a  trivial  case  would  not  be  parallel  to  the  circumstances 
which  created  the  need  for  a  parable.  That  which  made 
apology  necessary  was  Christ's  interest  in  men  who,  in  the 
opinion  even  of  His  critics,  had  gone  far  astray,  and  the 
parable,  to  serve  its  purpose,  must  put  a  case  analogous  to 
that  of  those  whom  the  straying  sheep  represents.  This  would 
be  perfectly  understood  by  the  parties  to  whom  the  parable 
was  addressed. 

But,  even  in  that  case,  was  not  the  shepherd's  demand  for 
sympathy  overdone  ?  We  think  not,  and  in  saying  so  we 
take  no  account  of  difference  of  temperament  between  Eastern 
shepherds  and  those  of  our  own  land,  though  doubtless  this 
might  somewhat  affect  the  manner  of  parties  similarly  situ- 
ated. Two  considerations  suffice  to  redeem  the  shepherd's 
behaviour  from  sentimentalism.  On  the  one  hand,  it  was 
perfectly  natural  that  there  should  be  a  desire,  at  the  end  of 
an  eventful  journey,  to  give  expression  to  the  pent-up  feeling 
connected  with  its  object,  and  to  talk  to  acquaintances  about 
the  incidents  of  the  way ;  all  the  circumstances  connected 
with  the  search,  and  the  finding  of  the  lost  sheep.  His  whole 
interest  has  been  concentrated  upon,  his  whole  mind  absorbed 
by,  that  one  sheep ;  it  has  cost  him  much  thought,  anxiety, 
and  effort ;  and  now  that  all  is  happily  ended,  there  is  a  rush 
©f  emotion  which  seeks  relief  in  the  narration  of  the  story  to 
sympathetic  hearers.  All  men  may  not  speak  as  the  shepherd 
is  represented  speaking,  but  all  men  feel  as  he  felt,  in  similar 
circumstances.  The  secret  thought  of  every  human  heart,  on 
the  recovery  of  something  lost  after  much  and  painful  anxiety 
and  effort,  is,  "  Rejoice  with  me,  for  I  have  found  that  which 
was  lost ; "  and  Christ  makes  the  shepherd  say  what  all  men 
think,  because  one  chief  purpose  of  the  parable  is  to  accentu- 
ate the  joy  of  finding  things  lost.  Then,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  shepherd's  desire  to  unburden  himself  to  his  neighbours 
would  be  greatly  intensified  by  the  assurance  that  his  tale 
would  greatly  interest  the  listeners.  On  that  he  might  safely 
reckon;  n^t  merely  because  of  the  innate  curiosity  of  man- 
kind, or  ot  the  craving  for  news  to  relieve  the  dull  monotony 


270  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  it. 

of  life  in  a  thinly  peopled,  pastoral  country,  or  of  the  interest 
which  human  beings  take  in  each  other,  especially  in  rural 
districts,  where  the  feeling  of  neighbourliness  is  strong,  making 
the  simple,  honest  denizens  of  hills  and  dales  mutually  com- 
municative and  sympathetic  ;  but  more  particularly  because 
of  the  bearing  of  the  tale  on  their  own  personal  interest.  Fdr 
the  case  of  their  friend  and  neighbour  might  be  their  own, 
and  it  would  greatly  interest  them  to  know  the  track  of  the 
wanderer,  the  risks  it  ran,  where  it  was  found,  and  in  what 
condition  ;  for  such  knowledge  would  be  useful  to  themselves 
in  case  any  of  their  own  sheep  should  stray  from  the  fold. 
Therefore  the  returned  shepherd,  in  asking  neighbours  to 
come  and  hear  his  story,  was  but  giving  them  an  expected 
opportunity.  And  we  are  not  to  think  of  the  invitation  as 
formal,  as  of  a  host  inviting  guests  to  a  feast.  The  words 
put  into  the  shepherd's  mouth  scarce  needed  to  be  spoken. 
The  home-coming  of  one  who  had  been  absent  for  days  on 
so  interesting  an  errand  said  to  all  the  dwellers  around: 
Come  hear  my  story ;  come  congratulate  me  on  the  success 
of  my  quest.  And  the  point  of  importance  here  is,  that  the 
neighbours  would  certainly  gather  around  their  fellow-shep- 
herd to  hear  his  tale,  and  would  hear  it  with  sympathetic  ears. 
That  is  not  expressly  stated,  but  it  is  more  impressively  said 
by  being  taken  for  granted.  Jesus  pays  human  nature  the 
compliment  of  treating  neighbourly  sympathy  in  the  circum- 
stances as  a  thing  of  course. 

In  the  application  of  the  parable,  which  we  have  now  to 
notice,  neighbourly  sympathy  could  not  be  treated  as  a  thing 
of  course,  for  it  was  precisely  the  absence  of  it  that  had 
given  occasion  to  the  parable  being  spoken.  It  is  therefore 
to  this  side  of  the  subject  that  prominence  is  given.  Jesus 
passes  over  in  silence  His  own  feelings  as  the  Shepherd  of 
morally  lost  men,  His  joy  over  finding  even  one,  and  His 
desire  that  others  should  rejoice  along  with  Him,  delicately 
leaving  these  to  be  inferred  from  the  behaviour  cf  the  shep- 
herd in  the  parable  ;  and  emphasises  the  sympathy  which  He 
receives  in  the  prosecution  of  His  work — receives,  however, 
not  from  men,  but  from  the  inhabitants  of  the  upper  world. 
There  is  wonderful  pathos  and  pungency  in  this  reference 
to  heaven  as  the  scene  of  sympathetic  joy  over  the  restoration 


ch.  ii.]  The  Lost  Sheep.  271 

of  erring  sinners  to  the  fold  of  God.  It  implies  that  Jesus 
meets  with  no  such  joy  on  earth.  It  is  a  virtual  complaint 
against  his  Pharisaic  critics,  which  is  none  the  less  effective 
that  it  is  indirectly  conveyed  in  the  form  of  a  contrast  between 
their  conduct  and  that  of  celestials.  The  Son  of  man,  who 
was  ever  busy  seeking  the  lost,  finds  Himself  utterly  isolated 
and  misunderstood  ;  and  with  His  back  to  the  wall,  as  it 
were,  He  is  fain  to  go  to  heaven  in  quest  of  beings  who 
shared  His  feelings  towards  the  sinful.  To  heaven,  since  He 
could  not  find  backing  nearer  hand.  Where  shall  I  go,  He 
asked  Himself,  to  find  beings  who  feel  as  I  do  ?  To  the 
righteous  men  of  Israel  ?  Nol  they  have  no  joy  over  poor 
vulgar  publicans  and  sinners  repenting  ;  they  joy  only  in 
the  fact  that  they  are  not  as  other  men.  To  cultivated 
Sadducees  ?  No  1  they  think  men  well  enough  as  they  are, 
and  look  on  repentance  as  much  ado  about  nothing,  an 
unnecessary  disturbance  of  one's  happiness  during  his  brief 
tenure  of  existence.  To  the  world  outside  Judaea?  No! 
the  day  will  come  ere  long  when  they  will  be  thankful  to 
hear  of  Him  whose  countrymen  brought  it  as  a  heavy  charge 
against  Him  that  He  received  sinners  ;  but  as  yet  the  heathen 
know  neither  the  joy  of  saving,  nor  the  joy  of  being  saved. 
Nowhere  on  earth  can  I  find  sympathisers.  In  heaven  then  ? 
Yes !  in  heaven  they  understand  Me  ;  in  heaven  they  feel 
as  I  feel;  there  is  joy  in  heaven,  I  tell  you,  over  sinners 
repenting;  yea,  even  over  one  of  these  despised  sinners 
repenting,  more  than  over  ninety  and  nine  just  persons  that 
need  no  repentance.  The  Pharisaic  fault-finders  might  well 
feel  ashamed  for  compelling  the  object  of  their  censure  to 
go  so  far  in  quest  of  sympathy,  and  they  might  also  well 
feel  self-condemned  if  they  reflected  for  a  moment  on  the 
startling  declaration  their  cynicism  had  provoked.  For  it 
was  by  no  means  an  improbable  statement,  however  strange 
it  might  appear;  no  mere  justifiable  jeu  cTesprit,  uttered  on 
the  spur  of  the  moment  by  one  who  felt  himself  hard  pressed. 
A  jeu  d' esprit  it  certainly  is  ;  for  the  occasion  is  one  of  those  in 
which  Christ's  words  were  apt  to  be  full  of  poetry  and  passion ; 
not  merely  rays  of  light,  but  flashes  of  lightning.  But  it  is 
more,  even  sober  truth.  For,  take  the  kernel  of  the  state- 
ment— that  there  is  joy  in  heaven  over  the  repentance  of  a 


27a  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  il 

sinner,  is  that  incredible  ?  The  denizens  of  heaven  are  the 
good ;  and  what  better  occasion  for  joy  can  good  beings  have 
than  the  turning  of  a  sinner  from  evil  to  righteousness? 
Ask  not  sceptically : 

*  Is  there  care  in  heaven  ?  and  is  there  love 
In  heavenly  spirits  to  these  creatures  base 
That  may  compassion  of  their  evils  move?" 

Why  not  ?  The  angels  have  the  same  occupation  as  Jesus : 
they  are  ministering  spirits  to  those  who  are  about  to  inherit 
salvation,  and  they  have  therefore  a  fellow-feeling  with  the 
Good  Shepherd,  like  the  neighbours  of  the  shepherd  in  the 
parable.  Nay,  hath  not  the  Eternal  Himself  a  most  real  joy 
over  a  sinner  repenting  ?  God  is  love,  therefore  He  hath  no 
pleasure  in  the  death  of  a  sinner,  therefore  He  hath  pleasure 
when  a  sinner  turns  from  his  evil  ways  ;  yea,  even  if  that 
sinner  be  the  meanest  of  mankind.  For  consider  what  a 
difference  it  would  make  to  ourselves  if  that  meanest  one 
were  related  to  us  as  a  son  or  a  brother !  Now  the  blessed 
truth  is,  that  in  the  meanest  member  of  the  human  race 
repenting,  God  sees  a  prodigal  child  of  His  returning  to  his 
Father's  house.  That  is  the  truth  implied  in  the  golden 
saying  with  which  the  first  and  second  of  these  three  parables 
end,  and  it  is  the  truth  expressly  taught  in  the  third.  It  is 
the  great  Christian  doctrine  concerning  God  which  the  world 
never  has  believed,  and  which  the  Church  has  only  half- 
believed,  and  which  God  knew  from  of  old  men  would  ever 
be  slow  to  believe ;  hence  the  protestation  by  the  mouth  of 
prophecy :  "  My  thoughts  are  not  your  thoughts,"  following 
the  declaration  :  "  Let  the  wicked  forsake  his  way,  and  the 
unrighteous  man  his  thoughts,  and  let  him  return  unto  the 
Lord,  and  He  will  have  mercy  upon  him,  and  to  our  God, 
for  He  will  abundantly  pardon." l 

There  may  appear  to  be  more  difficulty  in  understanding 
this  declaration  of  our  Lord's,  taken  as  referring  to  God, 
when  regard  is  had  to  the  comparative  form  in  which  it 
is  put — more  joy  over  one  sinner  repenting  than  over  ninety- 
and-nine  just  persons  who  need  no  repentance — the  reason 
being  the  peculiarly  sweet  pleasure  connected  with  finding 

*  Isaiah  h.  7,  8. 


ch.  ii. J  The  Lost  Sheep.  273 

things  lost.  It  may  appear  that  this  peculiar  experience  is 
due  to  the  constitution  of  human  nature,  and  that  it  there- 
fore savours  of  anthropopathism  to  ascribe  such  joy  to  the 
Divine  Being.  We  need  not,  however,  trouble  ourselves 
with  this  metaphysical  problem  j  for  if  we  are  going  to  be 
sensitive  about  anthropopathism,  we  must  go  further  back, 
and  inquire  whether  we  can  legitimately  ascribe  joy  in  any 
form,  or  any  emotion  whatsoever,  to  God.  We  shall,  there- 
fore, rather  ask  what  this  comparative  statement  made  by 
Christ  signifies  for  men  ;  or,  to  be  more  definite,  for  Christ 
Himself.  What  does  our  Lord  mean,  when  he  says  in  effect : 
I  have  more  joy  in  one  of  these  poor  sinners  repenting,  than 
in  ninety-and-nine  just  men  who  need  no  repentance?  Is 
He  sneering  at  the  sham  righteousness  of  the  Pharisees  ?  No  1 
He  is  in  too  tender  a  mood  for  sneering,  not  to  say  that  lie 
has  too  much  love  in  His  heart,  even  for  Pharisees,  to  sneer 
at  any  time.  He  argues  with  His  censors  on  the  assumption 
that  they  are  as  good  as  they  think  themselves.  He  means 
to  say,  that  there  is  a  sense  in  which  a  man  may  rationally 
rejoice  more  over  the  repentance  of  a  notable  sinner  than  over 
the  righteousness  of  many  men  who  have  all  their  days  lived 
in  an  exemplary  manner,  if  not  absolutely,  yet  comparatively, 
sinless.  This  greater  joy  over  the  penitent  sinner  needs  no 
more  explanation  than  the  joy  of  the  shepherd  over  the 
sheep  which  was  lost.  It  is  simply  an  illustration  of  the 
great  law,  according  to  which  all  human  beings  have  peculiar 
joy  over  lost  things  found.  If  the  Pharisees  had  only  made 
use  of  their  own  human  instincts  as  a  guide  to  their  judg- 
ment in  the  affairs  of  morals  and  religion,  they  would  not 
have  thought  the  statement  surprising.  Nay,  if  they  had 
but  recollected  their  own  theoretical  views,  even  within  the 
moral  sphere,  they  would  have  sympathised  with  Christ's 
conduct  and  feelings,  instead  of  putting  Him  on  His  defence 
by  captious  criticism.  For  it  was  a  doctrine  of  the  Talmud- 
ists  of  after-days,  and  was  probably  an  opinion  current  in 
Rabbinical  schools  even  in  our  Lord's  time,  that  a  man 
who  had  been  guilty  of  many  sins  might  by  repentance 
raise  himself  to  a  higher  degree  of  virtue  than  the  perfectly 
righteous  man  who  had  never  experienced  his  temptations. 
*  Vide  on  this  Lightfoot,  '  Horae  Hebraicae,'  and  Schwab, '  Traits  des 

T 


274         The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,   [book  n 

If  ttiis  were  so,  surely  it  was  reasonable  to  occupy  oneself 
in  endeavouring  to  get  sinners  to  start  on  this  noble  career  of 
self-elevation,  and  to  rejoice  when  in  any  instance  he  had 
succeeded.  But  it  is  one  thing  to  have  correct  theories,  and 
another  to  put  them  in  practice.  These  Pharisaic  faultfinders 
believed  in  a  coming  Messiah,  but  they  rejected  Jesus  ;  they 
searched  the  Scriptures  as  writings  in  which  they  expected 
to  find  eternal  life,  and  they  listened  not  to  Him  who  had 
the  words  of  eternal  life  ;  they  reckoned  it  possible  for  a 
penitent  sinner  not  only  to  equal,  but  to  excel,  one  that 
by  comparison  needed  no  repentance,  and  they  found  fault 
with  one  who  not  only  held  this  view  as  an  abstract  doctrine, 
but  acted  on  it,  and  sought  to  bring  those  who  had  strayed 
furthest  from  the  paths  of  righteousness  to  repentance,  believ- 
ing that  though  last  they  might  yet  be  first. 


THE  LOST  DRACHMA. 

Or  what  woman  having  ten  drachma,  if  she  lose  one  arachma,  doth  not 
light  a  lamp,  and  sweep  the  house,  and  seek  carefully  till  she  find  it; 
and,  having  found  it,  she  calls  together  her  female  friends  and  neigh- 
bours;l  saying:  Rejoice  with  me,  because  I  have  found  the  drachma 
which  I  lost. — Luke  xv.  8 — 10. 

THIS  parable  suggests  the  case  of  a  poor  woman,  living  pos- 
sibly in  widowed  loneliness,  in  a  humble  cottage  in  a  country 
village,  and  possessing  very  scanty  means  of  livelihood  ;  and 
its  special  lesson  is  that  the  joy  of  finding  things  lost  may  be 
experienced  and  sympathised  with  even  in  connection  with 
things  of  little  intrinsic  value.  A  housewife  who  loses  one 
piece  of  silver  out  of  ten,  which  constitutes  her  stock  of 
money,  quite  naturally  rejoices  when  she  recovers  it,  and  she 
will  receive  neighbourly  congratulations  from  her  acquaint- 

Berackhoth,'  introduction,  p.  xxxii.  There  is  not  perfect  consent  as  to 
what  the  Rabbinical  doctrine  was ;  but  Schwab's  view  is  that  in  the  case 
of  sins  against  God  and  sobriety,  a  man  might  by  repentance  make  him- 
self equal  or  superior  to  the  perfectly  just  man,  Zadicgamour;  but  in 
the  case  of  sins  against  men,  repentance,  while  obtaining  pardon  from 
God,  and  regaining  the  esteem  of  men,  could  not  make  the  penitent  equal 
or  superior  to  the  perfectly  good  man. 

1  rAc  <pi\a<:  Kal  ytlrovac,  feminine,  the  corresponding  expression  in  the 
first  parable  being  rvvc  QlXove  cat  rote  ytirwoQ. 


ch.  ii.]  The  Lost  Drachma.  275 

ances  on  her  good  fortune.  Such  is  the  implied  assertion ; 
but  if  any  one  has  difficulty  in  believing  that  the  loss  of  one 
piece  of  money,  of  the  value  of  a  sixpence,  out  of  ten,  could 
appear  a  serious  matter  even  to  the  impoverished  population 
of  a  Syrian  village,  it  is  easy  to  conceive  circumstances  which 
would  give  even  to  the  one  lost  coin  a  special  value.  It 
might  form  part  of  a  whole  which  had  been  hoarded,  and  was 
all  needed,  for  a  special  purpose  ;  as  to  pay  a  tax,  or  to  defray 
the  expenses  connected  with  a  religious  festival.  In  such  a 
case,  to  lose  one  coin  was  to  be  unable  to  meet  the  emergency 
for  the  sake  of  which  the  whole  had  been  carefully  scraped 
together,  and  such  inability  might  be  the  occasion  of  no  little 
anxiety.  Our  ministerial  experiences  have  afforded  oppor- 
tunity of  knowing  into  what  distress  a  poor,  but  honest, 
Highland  widow  can  be  thrown  by  her  inability  to  pay  on 
demand  the  half-yearly  rent  for  her  miserable  garret,  amount- 
ing to  the  petty  sum  of  one  pound  sterling,  and  with  what 
joy  she  will  receive  from  a  friend  the  means  of  satisfying  her 
landlord.  Suppose  such  a  poor  widow  had  succeeded  in 
accumulating  in  the  course  of  six  months  the  twenty  shillings 
necessary  for  the  purpose,  and  that  towards  the  end  of  the 
period,  as  rent-day  was  approaching,  she  had  somehow  lost 
one  of  the  twenty — would  you  wonder  that  the  misfortune  put 
her  much  about,  if  she  spoke  of  it  to  her  neighbours  and  to 
her  pastor ;  if  she  searched  for  it  day  after  day,  and  if  on 
finding  it  she  joyfully  reported  the  fact  to  the  same  parties, 
and  met  with  honest  sympathy  from  them  all  ?  We  can 
only  say  for  ourselves  that  we  should  feel  ashamed  if  the 
joy  of  a  poor  fellow-creature  in  the  case  supposed  did  not 
awaken  a  very  hearty  response  in  our  bosom. 

This  little  parable  gives  a  very  life-like  description  of  the 
search  for  the  lost  drachma.  The  woman  lights  a  lamp, 
sweeps  the  house,  and  seeks  carefully  till  she  finds  it.  The 
lighting  of  the  lamp  speaks  to  a  house  ill-provided  with 
windows,  perhaps  having  no  windows  at  all,  but  receiving 
light  only  from  the  door.1     There  may  be  light  enough  in 

1  Robinson,  in  his  '  Biblical  Researches,'  vol.  iii.  p.  44,  mentions  a 
house  in  the  Lebanon  in  which  he  passed  a  night,  answering  to  this 
description.  "There  was  no  window,  and  no  light  except  from  tho 
door." 

T  2 


276  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  il 

the  clay  hut  to  enable  one  familiar  with  all  its  corners  to 
grope  about  and  find  all  she  wants,  but  there  is  not  light 
sufficient  to  guide  one  in  searching  for  something  lost.  The 
housewife  must  go,  lamp  or  candle  in  hand,  looking  narrowly 
into  the  dark  nooks.  But  this  will  not  suffice.  For  in  dark 
neglected  corners  there  will  be  dust,  and  if  the  lost  coin 
happens  to  have  fallen  into  such  a  dusty  corner  it  will  not 
be  visible  to  the  eye.  The  besom  will  be  necessary  as  well 
as  the  lamp,  and  instead  of  sweeping  here  and  there  it  will 
be  best  to  sweep  the  floor  all  over,  in  hope  of  sweeping  up 
the  coin  along  with  the  dust.  Then,  the  sweeping  ended, 
a  search  among  the  accumulated  heap  of  dust  must  be 
commenced.  And  so  the  anxious  woman  commences  the 
search,  slowly,  carefully  examining  in  the  heap,  and  looking 
narrowly  at  everything  in  the  least  degree  resembling  a 
coin.  At  last  her  patience  is  rewarded  ;  there  it  is  shining 
in  the  lamplight.  She  sets  down  her  candle,  rushes  out  of 
her  dwelling,  and  into  the  house  of  her  nearest  neighbours, 
exclaiming,  "  Rejoice  with  me,  I  have  found  the  piece  which 
I  lost."  And  of  course  they  do  rejoice  with  her  ;  for  doubt- 
less they  have  heard  of  her  loss  ere  now ;  they  know  about 
the  missing  drachma,  and  they  have  sympathised  with  their 
neighbour's  anxiety,  with  the  sympathy  peculiar  to  fellows 
in  poverty ;  and  now  they  sympathise  not  less  sincerely  with 
her  in  her  joy  over  the  recovery  of  her  lost  property. 

It  scarcely  needs  to  be  remarked  that  the  housewife  of 
the  second  parable  would  be  more  demonstrative  than  the 
shepherd  of  the  first  in  the  expression  of  her  joy,  and  in 
her  demand  for  the  sympathy  of  her  female  friends  and 
neighbours.  Of  this  difference  some  trace  may  be  found  in 
the  text,  if  we  regard  that  as  the  true  reading  which  gives 
the  Greek  verb  rendered  in  the  English  Version,  "  calls 
together,"  in  the  middle  voice  in  the  second  parable,  instead 
of  in  the  active  as  in  the  first.  With  Godet  we  think  this 
reading  is  to  be  preferred,  but  we  doubt  if  he  has  correctly 
indicated  the  significance  of  the  change  in  the  mode  of 
expression.  He  thinks  that  the  active  (<TvyKah<n)  is  used  in 
the  first  instance  because  the  shepherd  has  not  a  monopoly 
of  the  joy,  the  lost  sheep  sharing  it  in  part,  and  that  the 
middle  (o-uyKaAeircu)  is  used  in  the   second  instance,  on  the 


ch.  ii.]  The  Lost  Drachma  2,77 

other  hand,  because  the  joy  Is  wholly  the  woman's, — that 
which  was  lost  being  a  thing  without  life,  incapable  of  any 
sensation  of  joy.  In  a  similar  way  he  explains  the  diverse 
terms  in  which  the  lost  object  is  spoken  of  in  the  two 
parables :  in  the  first,  described  as  "  the  lost "  (to  airoXcoXoi), 
as  an  object  of  pity;  in  the  second,  as  "the  drachma  which 
I  have  lost,"  the  whole  sympathy  being  concentrated  upon 
the  loser.1  The  suggestions  are  ingenious,  but  possibly  just 
a  little  over-refined.  We  are  inclined  to  explain  the  first 
of  the  two  differences  by  a  reference  to  the  difference  in  sex 
between  the  principal  characters  in  the  two  parables.  The 
middle  voice  is  used  in  the  second  parable,  because  the  actor 
is  a  woman,  not  a  man,  to  mark  the  greater  intensity  and 
subjectivity  of  her  sex.  The  second  difference  may  be  ex- 
plained in  a  similar  way.  The  shepherd  speaks  of  his  lost 
sheep  in  an  objective  way,  without  emphasising  the  fact  that 
the  loss  was  his.  The  housewife,  on  the  other  hand,  puts 
the  loss  which  she  sustained  in  the  forefront,  and  says :  Not 
my  drachma  which  was  lost,  but  the  drachma  which  I  lost. 
It  is,  however,  questionable  whether  it  were  not  better  to 
regard  the  two  modes  of  expression  as  equivalent.2 

In  the  application  of  this  parable  Jesus  contents  Himself 
with  the  positive  statement  that  "  there  is  joy  in  the  presence 
of  the  angels  of  God  over  one  sinner  that  repenteth."  A 
comparative  statement  in  this  case  would  have  been  unsuit- 
able, as  tending  to  weaken  rather  than  strengthen  the  senti- 
ment expressed  at  the  close  of  the  first  parable  ;  seeing  that 
it  would  have  had  to  run  thus :  There  is  joy  in  heaven  over 
one  sinner  that  repenteth,  more  than  over  nine  sinners  that 
need  no  repentance.8 

1  '  Commentaire '  in  loc. 

•  To  show  bow  much  in  such  minute  points  one  is  apt  to  be  influenced 
by  fancy,  it  may  be  mentioned  that  Trench  puts  the  following  construction 
on  the  diverse  manner  of  expression  in  reference  to  the  two  lost  objects : 
The  Shepherd,  being  Christ,  says  My  sheep;  the  woman,  being  the 
Church,  says  the  drachma. 

8  Lightfoot  ('  Horae  Hebraicas ')  gives  a  parable  from  the  Talmud  like  the 
foregoing  one  of  the  Lost  Piece,  the  aim  of  which  is  to  illustrate  the  quest 
of  wisdom.  Here  again  we  have  to  note  the  comparatively  commonplace 
moral  of  the  Talmudic  parables. 


278  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  ii. 

But  the  moral  as  repeated  here  has  an  interest  and  a  pathos 
of  its  own.  It  suggests  the  thought  that  the  repentance  of  the 
meanest  of  mankind,  however  insignificant  in  social  position 
or  degraded  in  character,  calls  forth  a  sympathetic  thrill  in  the 
heart  of  God.  It  teaches  us  that  all  souls  and  their  moral 
history  are  precious  in  God's  sight,  that  every  human  being 
has  value  in  the  esteem  of  heaven,  as  endowed  with  reason 
and  free  will,  and  subject  to  infinite  moral  possibilities.  This 
was  then  a  new  doctrine  concerning  man,  and  it  is  still  very 
contrary  to  the  world's  way  of  thinking  concerning  human 
beings.  For  on  this  earth  men  are  still  very  cheap  in  one 
another's  esteem  for  various  reasons,  theoretical  and  practical. 
Some  regard  the  moral  interests  of  humanity  with  comparative 
indifference  because  their  philosophy  teaches  them  to  treat  as 
insignificant  the  distinction  between  man  and  beast,  in  nature 
and  in  destiny.  Others,  through  the  lust  for  gain,  are  accus- 
tomed to  regard  human  life  as  of  no  account  in  comparison 
with  commercial  profit.  Jesus  assures  us  that  in  heaven 
human  beings  are  not  valued  so  cheaply.  There,  He  tells  us, 
all  souls  are  precious,  the  souls  of  publicans  and  profligates,  of 
bondsmen  and  negroes  ;  and  though  nothing  spiritually  great 
should  come  out  of  the  repentance  of  any  of  these  least  ones, 
though  they  should  remain  least  ones  for  ever,  yet  is  the  change 
implied  in  repentance,  even  in  their  case  deemed  an  event  of 
solemn  interest,  because  the  blurred  image  of  God  is  restored 
in  some  degree,  and  the  soul  is  at  least  saved,  though  as 
through  fire.  Surely  an  altogether  God-worthy  way  of 
thinking  1  Long  may  it  prevail  on  earth  as  well  as  in  heaven  ! 
For  if  even  in  spite  of  a  Christian  way  of  thinking  and 
acting,  the  condition  of  many  be  far  from  satisfactory,  it 
would  certainly  be  infinitely  worse  were  the  way  of  thinking 
peculiar  to  philosophic  atheism,  or  to  brutal  mammon-worship, 
universally  prevalent.  As  it  is,  we  manage  to  make  many 
ignorant  and  erring  ones  imperfect  Christians  ;  as  it  would  be 
then,  the  multitude  would  live  unheeded  in  misery,  and  die 
unmourned  in  sin. 

This  is  all  that  needs  to  be  said  on  this  parable.  If  we 
were  anxious  to  draw  out  our  exposition  to  a  greater  length, 
we  might  easily  do  so,  by  following  the  example  of  comment- 
ators who  indulge  in  spiritualising  interpretation,  telling  us 


ch.  ii.]  The  Lost  Son.  279 

that  the  house  is  the  Church  ;  and  the  woman  the  indwelling 
Spirit ;  and  the  drachma,  man  with  the  image  of  God  stamped 
upon  him,  but  lying  in  the  dust  of  sin  and  corruption  ;  the 
candle  the  Word  of  God  held  forth  by  the  Church,  and  the 
sweeping  the  disturbance  caused  by  the  action  of  the  Spirit  in 
the  individual  and  in  society,  making  dust  rise  and  fly  about, 
and  turning  the  world  upside  down.  To  our  mind,  however, 
this  style  of  interpretation  savours  of  frigidity.  If  we  may 
say  it  without  offence,  it  seems  to  us  to  savour,  moreover,  of 
Pharisaism.  It  looks  as  if  interpreters  found  it  impossible  to 
discover  any  real  interest  in  the  story  itself,  taken  as  a 
natural  illustration  of  the  joy  of  finding  things  lost,  and  felt  it 
necessary  to  fly  to  the  spiritual  sense  to  get  something  to  say. 
What  is  this  but  Pharisaic  indifference  to  the  affairs  of 
common  humanity  in  a  new  form  ?  The  parable  as  a  scene 
from  ordinary  life  is  of  no  account,  and  all  the  objects  must 
be  transformed  into  theological  equivalents  ere  they  can  be 
worthy  of  attention.  How  much  better  to  try  first  of  all  to 
feel  the  human  pathos  of  the  parable  as  a  story  of  real  life, 
and  then  to  make  that  pathos  the  one  link  of  connection 
between  the  natural  and  the  spiritual. 


THE    LOST    SON. 

And  He  said,  A  certain  man  had  two  sons :  and  the  younger  of  them  said 
to  his  father,  Father,  give  me  the  portion  of  the  property  that  falletk 
to  me  as  my  share. \  And  he  divided  between  them  his  living, }  And 
not  many  days  after  the  youtiger  son  gathered  all  together,  and  took 
his  journey  into  a  far  coicntry,  and  there  wasted  his  substance  with 
prodigal  living}  And  when  he  had  spent  all,  there  arose  a  mighty 
famine  in  that  land;  and  he  began  to  be  in  want.  And  he  went  ana 
attached  himself  to  a  citizen  of  that  country ;  and  he  sent  him  into  tht 

1  ri  lm(3a\\ov  pipoQ  r»Jc  oiaiac  :  a  quite  classic  expression ;  vide  Wetstein 
for  examples. 

1  rbv  jSiov,  practically  synonymous  with  the  ttjq  vbatas  going  before. 

8  £<iv  iowTut;,  living  in  excess,  with  special  reference  to  extravagant 
expenditure.  From  this  phrase  comes  the  common  title  of  this  parable, 
The  Prodigal  Son — 'O  v!6c  aoutroc,  filius  perditus,  or  prodigus.  Dr.  Field. 
irith  reference  to  the  old  rendering,  "  riotous  living,"  retained  in  R.  V., 
asks  why  not  "  with  prodigal  living,"  with  reference  to  the  familiar  Eng 
lish  title  of  the  parable — '  Otium  Norv.' 


280  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  ii. 

Jit  Ids  to  feed  swine.  And  he  was  fain  to  fill  his  belly  ninth  the  carob- 
tree  pods l  that  the  swine  did  eat :  and  no  man  gave  unto  him.  Bui 
when  he  came  to  himself,  he  said,  How  many  hired  servants  of  my 
father  s  have  bread  enough  and  to  spare,  and  I  am  perishing  here  with 
hunger!  I  will  arise  and  go  to  my  father,  and  will  say  unto  him, 
Father,  I  have  sinned  against  heaven,  and  before  thee,  J  am  no  more 
worthy  to  be  called  thy  son  ;  make  me  as  one  of  thy  hired  servants.  And 
he  arose,  and  came  to  his  father.  But  when  he  was  yet  a  great  way 
off,  his  father  saw  him,  and  had  compassion,  and  ran  and  fell  on  his 
neck  and  kissed  him.  And  the  son  said  unto  him,  Father,  I  sinned 
against  heaven  and  before  thee,  I  am  no  more  worthy  to  be  called  thy 
son.  But  the  father  said  to  his  servants,  Bring  forth  quickly 2  the  best 
robe,  and  put  it  on  him  ;  and  put  a  ring  on  his  hand,  and  shoes  on  his 
feet;  and  bring  hither  the  fatted  calf,  and  kill  it :  and  let  us  eat  and 
be  merry  :  for  this  person,  my  son,  was  dead,  and  is  alive  again  ; 
was  lost,  and  is  found.  And  they  began  to  be  merry.  But  his  elder 
son  was  in  the  field ;  and  as  he  caine  and  drew  nigh  to  the  house,  he 
heard  music  and  dancing.  And,  calling  one  of  the  servants,  he  asked 
what  these  things  meant.  And  he  said  to  him  {it  is),  Because  thy 
brother  is  come ;  and  thy  father  killed  the  fatted  calf,  because  he 
received  him  safe  and  sound.  And  he  was  angry,  and  would  not  go 
in  :  and  his  father  came  out  and  entreated  him.  And  he  answering 
said  to  his  father,  Lo,  these  many  years  do  I  serve  thee,  neither  trans- 
gressed I  at  any  time  thy  commandment,  and  thou  never  gavest  me  a 
kid,  that  I  might  make  merry  with  my  friends.  But  as  soon  as  thy 
{precious') 3  son,  this  fellow  who  devoured  thy  living  with  harlots, 
arrived,  thou  didst  kill  for  him  the  fatted  calf  And  he  said  unto  him, 
Son,  thou  art  ever  with  ?ne  and  all  mine  is  thine.  It  was  meet  that 
we  should  make  merry,  and  be  glad ;  for  this  thy  {dear)  brother  was 
dead,  and  is  alive  again,  and  was  lost,  and  is  found. —  LUKE  xv. 
u—32. 

THIS  parable  differs  from  the  preceding  two  in  length,  in  the 
multiplicity  of  picturesque  and  pathetic  details,  in  heightened 
moral  interest  due  to  the  fact  of  the  example  being  taken  from 
the  sphere  of  human  conduct,  and  in  the  manner  in  which 

1  Kipiria,  so  called  from  their  horn-like,  curved  shape.  On  the  carob  or 
locust  tree,  and  its  fruit,  and  its  use  as  food  for  animals  and  for  the  poor, 
vide  Tristram's  '  Natural  History  of  the  Bible,'  also  Smith's  '  Dictionary 
of  the  Bible.' 

2  raxi  probably  forms  part  of  the  text,  though  it  is  not  found  in  many 
MSS.,  and  is  omitted  by  Tischendorf. 

3  We  throw  this  word  in  to  bring  out  the  tone  in  which  the  elder  son 
referred  to  his  brother.  It  is  gratifying  to  find  Dr.  Field  suggesting  the 
use  of  the  same  epithet,  also  of  the  epithet  'dear'  in  the  next  verse  to 
bring  out  what  the  returned  son  ought  to  be  to  his  brother.  The  latter 
suggestion  we  have  adopted  from  him. 


ch.  ilJ  The  Lost  Son.  281 

Pharisaic  severity  is  rebuked  ;  the  former  parables  showing 
the  censors  of  Jesus  how  they  ought  to  have  acted,  this  parable 
showing  them  (through  the  picture  of  the  elder  brother)  how 
they  did  act.  It  was  fitting  that  this  should  be  done  in  the 
last  of  the  three  parables  rather  than  in  the  others  because,  the 
illustration  being  taken  from  human  conduct,  the  term  'lost' 
has  a  moral  sense,  and  there  is  a  conflict  of  feeling  towards 
the  lost  object ;  on  the  one  hand  resentment  against  folly,  on 
the  other  pity  awakened  by  misery.  In  this  case,  therefore, 
sympathy  with  one  who  has  recovered  the  lost  cannot  be 
taken  for  granted,  as  it  could  in  the  case  of  a  lost  sheep,  or  of 
a  lost  coin  ;  for  the  feeling  of  resentment  might  predominate, 
as  accordingly  it  is  made  to  do  in  the  case  of  the  elder 
brother.  By  conveying  reproof  in  this  instance  under  this 
form,  Jesus  showed  His  respect  for  the  feelings  of  men  of 
exemplary  lives  against  the  sinful,  so  far  as  these  were  based 
on  sincere  love  of  virtue.  He  said  thereby  in  effect :  "  What 
I  condemn  in  you  is  not  your  disapprobation  of  sin,  but 
merely  the  excessive  one-sided  nature  of  your  resentment, 
shutting  your  hearts  against  pity  for  the  sinful."  This  tone 
of  carefully-qualified  and  guarded  blame,  very  observable  in 
the  closing  part  of  the  parable,  is  traceable  throughout  the 
whole,  in  the  picture  of  the  Prodigal,  and  of  the  Father,  not 
less  than  in  that  of  the  Elder  Brother.  Christ's  purpose 
evidently  is  not  to  provoke  but  to  conciliate,  not  to  treat 
moral  severity  as  inadmissible,  but  to  moderate  its  excess, 
and  to  soften  it  with  a  mixture  of  compassion. 

The  three  pictures  of  the  Prodigal  Son,  the  loving  Father, 
and  the  relentless  Elder  Brother,  make  up  this  parable  of  ex- 
quisite beauty  and  inexhaustible  didactic  significance.  Let 
us  stand  and  gaze  upon  each  of  them  in  turn,  till  we  have 
become  duly  impressed  with  the  inimitable  skill  of  the  Artist 
who  drew  them. 

1.  The  prodigal  is  so  depicted  as  to  show  us  his  sin  and 
folly,  and  yet  to  awaken  in  us  pity  for  his  misery.  He  is 
an  unfilial,  thoughtless,  self-willed,  sensual  youth,  who  by  his 
follies  brings  upon  himself  many  sorrows ;  and  he  excites  in 
us  just  the  sort  of  mixed  feeling  with  which  Jesus  regarded 
the  publicans  and  sinners  whom  he  represents,  extenuating 
not  their  guilt,  yet  deeply  commiserating  them.     This  foolish, 


282  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ.    £bog*  A 

wayward  one  is  the  younger  of  two  sons.  He  might  have 
been  either  of  them,  but  it  was  fitting  to  make  the  younger 
the  prodigal ;  because  the  younger  the  more  likely  to  be 
thoughtless,  and  the  weaker  the  influences  tending  to  give 
steadiness  by  developing  the  sense  of  responsibility ;  for  by 
the  Hebrew  Law  the  younger  of  two  sons  had  a  claim  to  only 
one-third  of  the  paternal  inheritance,  the  elder  receiving  a 
double  share  of  two-thirds,1  and  being  the  more  likely  just  on 
that  account  to  conduct  himself  with  gravity  as  one  conscious 
of  the  dignity  of  birthright.  The  career  of  this  younger  son 
is  exhibited  in  four  successive  scenes,  in  the  first  of  which  we 
see  his  self-will,  in  the  second  his  folly,  in  the  third  his  misery, 
and  in  the  fourth  his  repentance}  His  self-will  manifests 
itself  in  the  request  to  have  his  share  of  the  paternal  property 
given  into  his  hands  at  once,  that  he  may  be  free  to  do  with 
it  what  he  chooses.  His  motive  is  speedily  revealed  by  his 
subsequent  conduct  in  setting  off  with  all  his  means  to  a 
distant  country,  where  he  can  forget  his  home  and  family, 
and  be,  as  he  hopes,  forgotten  by,  and  hidden  from  the  know- 
ledge of,  his  friends.8  There  are  passionate  impulses  and 
hungry  appetites  within  him  which  can  get  no  outlet  in  his 
father's  house,  and  he  is  impatient  to  get  away  from  it  to  a 
place  where  he  can  follow  his  bent  without  restraint.  The 
youth  is  in  the  Byronic  or  Werterean  vein,  and  he  desires 
freedom  to  sow  his  wild  oats.  It  is  strange  that  the  father, 
who,  if  he  had  any  discernment,  must  have  noticed  the  mood 
of  his  boy,  consented  to  his  request ; 4  but  parental  soft- 
heartedness  often  does  what  a  dispassionate  judgment  cannot 
approve.  Moreover,  the  exigencies  of  the  parable  required 
that  he  should  so  act,  and  also  the  rSle  which  he  sustained  as 
the  representative  of  Divine  Providence  :  for  God  in  his  Provi- 
dence often  gives  to  men  towards  whom  He  has  a  high 
purpose  of  grace,  free  rein,  permitting  them  to  go  to  wild 
excesses  of  riot  before  he  breaks  them  in  to  the  yoke  of 
obedience ;  of  which  we  have  a  notable  instance  in  the  case 
of  Augustine,  whose  history  supplies  a  far  more  instructive 

1  Deut.  xxi.  17. 

*  Ver.  12;  ver.  13;  vers.  14 — 16;  vers.  17 — 19.  *  Ver.  13. 

*  Legally  he  might  either  grant  or  refuse  the  request :  **  Fecit  non  quod 
oportebat,  sed  quodlicebat  fecere." — Maldonatus. 


ch.  ii.]  The  Lost  Son.  283 

commentary  on  our  parable  than  anything  to  be  found  in  his 
writings.1 

The  folly  of  the  youth  is  depicted  in  very  few  words.  He 
scattered  his  substance,  living  in  sensual  indulgence,  continuing 
this  course  of  wasteful  excesses  till  all  his  means  were  gone. 
Melancholy  picture  of  enslavement  to  passion,  and  of  utter 
thoughtlessness  and  absence  of  self-control  1  The  fire  of  sinful 
impulse  once  kindled  burns  on  till  the  fuel  is  exhausted,  when 
the  poor  wretch,  who  in  thoughtless  joy  kindled  this  fire, 
and  for  a  while  compassed  himself  about  with  its  sparks,  must 
lie  down  in  sorrow.*  Where,  all  the  while,  is  the  reason  firm 
and  temperate  will  ?  Alas !  these  do  not  usually  keep 
company  with  self-will  and  lawless  desire.  They  may  return 
when  the  tempest  of  passion  has  spent  its  force,  but  meantime 
madness  rules  the  hour.  How  the  youth  spent  the  months  of 
folly  it  is  not  difficult  to  imagine.  With  characteristic  deli- 
cacy Jesus  omits  details,  leaving  the  ungracious  task  of  filling 
in  repulsive  particulars  to  the  elder  son.'  It  is  the  animus 
of  his  representation  that  is  at  fault ;  his  statement,  though 
brutally  unfeeling,  was  probably  too  true.  We  may  without 
any  breach  of  charity  conceive  the  prodigal  as  wasting  his 
means  on  every  form  of  sensual  gratification,  playing  the  fool 
in  no  half  and  half  manner.* 

The  inevitable  end  of  such  courses  is  want  and  misery,  and 
these  all  too  soon  overtook  the  prodigal.  His  money  is 
squandered,  and  he  is  now  almost  without  the  means  of 
purchasing  the  necessaries  of  life,  not  to  speak  of  hurtfuJ 
pleasures.     And,  as  evil  fortune  would  have  it,  about  the  time 

•  Godet  refers  to  Rom.  i.  24  as  illustrating  the  father's  consent  to  his 
son's  foolish  wishes. 

*  Isaiah  L  II.  •  Ver.  30.     ptrA  iropv&v. 

4  From  a  fragment  of  Eusebius  it  might  be  inferred  that  the  Ebionitic 
Gospel  went  beyond  the  elder  brother  in  describing  the  evil  life  of  the 
prodigal.  In  that  passage  Eusebius  refers  to  the  '  Gospel  according  to  the 
Hebrews '  in  connection  with  the  parable  of  the  Talents,  and  uses  the 
expression,  fitra  iropv&v  ra«  a*Xijrpi'3a»»>  (with  harlots  and  flute  women).  It 
is,  however,  not  clear  whether  the  words  are  a  quotation  from  the  Hebrew 
Gospel,  or  a  phrase  employed  by  Eusebius  himself  to  describe  the  prodi- 
gal's conduct.  The  passage  in  question  is  given  by  Mr.  Nicholson  in  his 
recently-published  work  on  'The  Gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews,* 
P>59> 


284  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [[book  11. 

when  his  resources  were  nearly  exhausted  there  "arose  a 
mighty  famine  in  that  land."  This  may  seem  a  blemish  in 
the  parable,  as  introducing  an  element  of  an  accidental 
character,  having  no  necessary  connection  with  the  prodigal's 
misconduct.  But  it  is  not  by  accident  that  physical  and  moral 
evil  meet  in  human  history.  There  is  a  Divine  teleology  in 
the  conjunction,  whether  appearing  in  individual  experience, 
or  in  the  life  of  nations,  and  the  parable  only  recognises  this 
truth  in  exhibiting  a  correspondence  between  moral  state  and 
outward  circumstances  which  is  often  exemplified  in  history, 
and  as  often  shown  by  the  result  to  have  been  designed  by 
Providence  to  serve  a  beneficent  purpose.  By  this  unhappy 
conjunction  of  exhausted  personal  resources  with  general 
scarcity  the  luckless  spendthrift  is  reduced  to  a  state  of  des- 
titution. And  at  the  heels  of  want  comes  degradation.  The 
well-born  and  once  wealthy  youth  is  driven  by  need  to  force 
himself1  into  the  service  of  a  citizen  of  the  country,  who  has 
no  better  employment  for  him  than  the  one  of  all  others  the 
most  abhorrent  to  a  Jew,  that  of  a  swineherd  to  a  Gentile 
owner.  A  humiliating  downcome,  and  a  representation  of  the 
degradation  of  the  publicans,  Jews  by  birth,  serving  Roman 
masters  as  tax-gatherers,  such  as  would  satisfy  even  Pharisaic 
hearers.2  The  sorrows  of  the  prodigal,  beginning  in  want 
and  passing  into  degradation,  reach  their  lowest  depth  in 
desperation.  His  hunger  at  length  attains  such  a  pitch  that 
he  has  a  craving  "  to  fill  his  belly,"  according  to  the  homely 
but  expressive  phrase  of  the  reading  we  follow,3  with  the 

1  hoWrjOii.  "The  word  implies  that  the  citizen  of  the  country  to  whom 
he  applied  was  unwilling  at  first  to  receive  him,  and  only  after  persistent 
pressing  entreaties  took  him  into  his  service." — Goebel,  'Die  Parabeln.' 
Se  obtrudat  (koXXq0»j,  contemptim) — Unger,  p.  148.  "  The  term  has  some- 
thing abject;  he  was,  as  it  were,  suspended  on  another  personality." — Godet. 

■  Negotium  quod  antehac  quam  maxime  abhorruisset  subit.  Judasus 
porcos  puscit  hominis  Gentilis. — Unger. 

3  yip'tacti  rijv  KotXiav.  The  reading  in  N,  B,  &c,  is  x°PTa(r^nvah  which  Godet 
regards  as  a  euphemism  substituted  for  the  true  reading  in  the  Lection- 
aries,  and  thence  transferred  into  the  text  by  copyists.  Westcott  and 
Hort,  however,  regard  this  as  the  true  reading,  alleging  that  the  other 
reading  misses  the  point,  and  holding  that  the  documentary  evidence  in 
any  case  is  here  decisive.  The  R.  V.  also  adopts  this  reading.  The 
American  revisers,  however,  prefer  the  other,  and  our  sympathies  arr 
with  them. 


ch.  n.]  The  Lost  Son.  2,85 

fruit  of  the  carob  tree  lying  on  the  ground,  and  on  which  the 
swine  fed.  He  had  little  else  to  eat,  for  nobody  thought  of 
giving  to  him  when  all  had  so  little  to  themselves.1 

Desperation  formed  the  turning-point  in  the  youth's  career, 
and  the  next  scene  shows  him  returning  to  his  senses,  and 
beginning  to  think  soberly  and  wisely.  He  is  brought  to  his 
last  shifts,  but  there  is  one  course  open :  he  may  go  back  to 
his  father's  house.  Of  that  house,  and  of  the  happiness  of 
even  those  in  servile  position  therein,  he  begins  now,  for  the 
first  time  for  many  days,  to  think.  The  thought  begets  a 
purpose,  and  suggests  a  plan.  He  will  go  home,  and  he  will 
make  confession  of  his  sin  in  well-premeditated  form,  suited  at 
once  to  propitiate  an  injured  father,  and  to  express  the 
modesty  of  his  present  expectations.  He  will  own  that  he 
has  been  an  offender  both  against  God  and  against  his  parent, 
and  he  will  beg  a  servant's  place  and  position,  a  great  boon 
to  a  starving  man.2  The  picture  of  the  penitent  is  not  drawn 
in  the  ethereal  colours  of  philosophy.  Repentance  has  its 
source  in  hunger,  and  its  motive  is  to  get  a  bit  of  bread. 
How  much  nobler  to  have  returned  to  rationality  in  folly's 
mid  career,  to  have  pulled  up  suddenly  and  said  :  "  This  will 
never  do ;  I  have  been  a  fool.  I  will  be  a  fool  no  longer ;  I 
will  henceforth  live  a  life  of  sobriety  and  wisdom."  Perhaps ; 
but  the  parable  is  true  to  life.  Hunger,  stern  necessity,  abject 
poverty,  has  made  many  a  man  wise  who  had  been  foolish 
before,  and  though  the  repentance  which  thus  begins  is  some- 
what impure  in  its  source,  it  clears  itself  betimes,  as  reason 
gradually  gains  its  ascendancy,  and  the  moral  nature  grows 

1  The  words  otitic  ISiSov  airy  it  is  best  to  understand  as  assigning  a 
reason  why  he  was  fain  to  eat  of  the  Ktpdrta.  The  prodigal  got  a  modicum 
of  bread  in  the  famine,  but  not  enough  to  satisfy ;  he  was  therefore  glad 
to  eke  out  his  diet  with  swine's  food,  which  he  could  get  for  the  lifting 
(like  hungry  children  eating  turnips  out  of  a  field).  So  Godet.  Similarly, 
Calvin. 

*  a»c  iva  r«5v  pio9iwv.  Trench  thinks  the  pioOtot  are  to  be  regarded  as 
occupying  a  lower  position  than  even  the  &>5Xo«,  so  that  the  sense  is :  a 
place  among  the  lowest  class  of  servants.  But  the  contrast  suggested  is 
rather  that  between  the  condition  of  the  fiiaOtoi  in  his  father's  house,  and 
that  of  the  pioeio*  in  the  land  where  he  now  spends  a  miserable  existence. 
So  Goebel.  Godet  identifies  the  fiioeiot  with  the  pagan  proselytes  of  the 
outer  court,  and  says  the  prodigal,  in  his  hope  and  desire,  takes  his  position 
beside  the  publican  (Luke  xviii.  13). 


a 86         The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  ii. 

into  strength.  The  prodigal's  repentance  became  purified, 
whether  as  the  result  of  reflection  on  the  way  home,  or  as  the 
effect  of  an  unexpectedly  gracious  reception  from  his  father, 
is  matter  of  conjecture;  but,  at  all  events,  he  dropped  the 
last  part  of  his  premeditated  confession  when  he  came  into 
his  father's  presence,  and  made  no  request,  but  only  owned 
his  sin.1 

2.  We  have  now  to  look  at  the  picture  of  the  father  of  this 
penitent  prodigal.  He  descries  his  son  while  he  is  yet  a  great 
way  off,  at  the  point  where  the  road  brings  a  traveller  first 
into  view.  He  has  not  forgotten  his  son,  though  his  son  has 
long  forgotten  him.  He  has  been  thinking  of  him  through 
the  long  period  of  his  absence.  Probably  he  often  cast 
glances  along  the  road  to  see  if  perchance  the  erring  one 
was  returning,  thinking  he  saw  him  in  every  stranger  who 
made  his  appearance.  He  has  continued  looking,  longing, 
till  hope  deferred  has  made  his  heart  sick  and  weary  almost 
to  despair.  If  he  is  not  represented  as  going  in  search  of  his 
lost  child,  it  is  not  because  he  cares  less  for  that  child  than 
the  shepherd  for  his  straying  sheep,  or  the  housewife  for  her 
missing  coin  ;  but  because  in  this  case  the  lost  one  is  a  man, 
not  a  beast  or  a  lifeless  thing,  and  can  return  of  his  own 
accord  when  his  mind  changes ;  and  because  only  when  the 
return  is  his  own  act,  has  it  any  moral  significance.  The 
father's  solicitude  therefore  takes  the  form  of  waiting  for  his 
son's  return.  He  has  to  wait  long,  but  at  last  his  patience 
is  rewarded.  For  lo  1  at  length  there  is  one  who  does  look 
like  the  long  lost  one.  He  is  much  changed,  wears  the  aspect 
of  a  beggar,  and  trudges  along  like  an  aged  man,  weak  and 
footsore.  But  love  is  quick  to  discern  resemblances,  and 
there  is  something  in  the  stranger's  gait  and  bearing  that 
recalls  the  lost  son.  The  father  watches  his  movements  for 
a  little,  till  in  the  end  he  feels  certain  that  it  is  none  other 
than  his  son.  The  tide  of  compassion  rises  instantaneously, 
sweeping  every  other  feeling  before  it.  There  is  not  even 
a  momentary  struggle  between  pity  and  resentment,  such  as 
the  prophet  represents  taking  place  in  the  Divine  bosom,  in 

1  The  premeditated  confession  was  the  repentance  of  fear;  the  actual 
confession,  the  repentance  of  love.  The  discovery  of  the  difference  pro- 
duced the  Reformation. — Godet 


ch.  ii.]  The  Lost  Son.  287 

reference  to  Ephraim.1  He  "  ran,  and  fell  on  his  neck,  and 
kissed  him  ; "  kissed  him  not  once  but  many  times,  with 
fervency  and  rapture.*  The  moving  scene  over,  the  son  gets 
an  opportunity  at  length  of  making  his  confession.  On 
arriving  at  the  homestead  together,  the  happy  father  gives 
orders  to  his  servants,  which  indicate  the  completeness  of  his 
forgiveness,  and  the  depth  of  his  joy.  First,  he  commands 
them  to  bring  forth  quickly  the  best  robe  and  put  it  on  him 
as  the  badge  of  distinction,8  and  a  ring  for  his  finger,  and 
shoes  for  his  feet  as  the  badges  of  a  free  man  *  (though  the 
shoes,  and  indeed  all  the  three  things — robe,  ring,  shoes,  may 
be  regarded  simply  as  a  provision  rendered  necessary  by  the 
destitute  condition  of  the  beggared  prodigal).  These  instruc- 
tions signify  full  reinstatement  in  filial  position  and  privilege. 
He  who  has  confessed  himself  no  more  worthy  to  be  called 
a  son  is  to  be  treated  as  a  son,  not  as  a  servant,  and  as  the 
son  of  such  a  father,  attired  as  becomes  the  member  of  a 
respectable  family.  He  receives  the  adoption,  the  vlodeoCa,  to 
employ  a  prominent  word  of  the  Pauline  theology.  This 
feature  in  the  parable  is  of  great  importance  in  respect  of  its 
religious  significance.  It  is  designed  to  suggest  the  doctrine 
that  God  deals  with  sinners  repenting,  as  the  father  dealt 
with  his  returning  son.  God  receives  all  penitents,  even  such 
as  the  publicans  and  sinners  of  Jewish  society,  as  sons.  It 
may  become  such  to  say :  We  are  not  worthy  to  be  called 
thy  sons,  in  the  same  spirit  as  Jewish  exiles  returned  from 
Babylon  are  represented  by  the  prophet  as  saying :  We  are  so 
changed  that  Abraham  would  not  know  us,  so  degraded  that 
Israel  might  be  ashamed  to  acknowledge  us.8     But  God  is 

1  Jer.  xxxl.  20. 

•  KaTi<t>i\ri<riv,  the  same  word  as  in  Luke  vii.  38,  45. 

8  (rroXijv  rijv  irpwrqv :  literally  the  first,  whether  in  time  or  in  degree 
must  be  determined  by  other  considerations.  Theophylact  understood  it 
in  the  temporal  sense,  and  rendered  n-piirijv  by  apxaiav,  the  reference  being 
supposed  to  be  to  the  pristine  state  of  innocence  before  the  falL  Similarly 
Calvin.  The  other  view  is  favoured  by  most  interpreters,  and  is  doubtless 
to  be  preferred.  For  the  use  of  »rpi5roc  in  the  sense  of  'chief,'  vide 
I  Tim.  i.  15. 

4  So  Meyer.  Grotius  takes  SuktvXwv  as  a  sign  of  dignity,  and  refers  to 
Gen.  xli.  42. 

*  Isa.  lxiii.  16. 


288  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  11. 

their  Father  notwithstanding;  regards  them  as  His  sonsv 
whence  His  joy  on  their  return ;  treats  them  as  sons,  not 
forgiving  them  with  a  grudge,  or  partially,  or  in  contempt, 
but  to  all  intents  and  purposes  acting  towards  them  as  if 
they  had  never  sinned.  At  this  point  the  doctrine  of  Christ 
remarkably  coincides  with  that  of  St.  Paul,  who  represents 
the  standing  of  sonship  as  the  privilege  of  every  justified 
man.  and  the  spirit  of  sonship  as  the  ideal  of  the  Christian's 
conscious  relation  to  God.  This  harmony  is  only  what  we 
should  expect  when  we  consider  that  in  the  teaching  both  of 
Christ  and  of  Paul  the  supreme  category  is  Grace. 

Next  the  father  gives  orders  that  a  feast  be  made  to  celebrate 
his  son's  return,  not  merely  to  express  his  own  joy  and  thank- 
fulness, but  to  give  the  whole  household  an  opportunity  of 
sharing  his  gladness.  The  fatted  calf,  which  had  been  in 
keeping  for  some  periodically  recurring  high  tide,1  must  be 
killed  to-day,  for  never  was  there  a  fitter  occasion  for  feasting 
and  mirth  than  the  day  on  which  a  son  who  has  been  as  dead 
comes  to  life  again,  and  who  has  been  lost  is  found.  So 
the  father  describes  the  case,  and  we  can  understand  what 
a  depth  of  meaning  the  words  have  for  him.  For  the  servants 
to  whom  he  first  utters  them,  they  describe  merely  the  outer 
aspect  of  the  fact :  a  son  who  has  been  very  long  away  from 
home  and  of  whom  no  tidings  have  been  received,  returned 
to  his  father's  house  in  good  health.  For  the  father,  they 
express  this  outer  fact,  and  more,  the  inner  ethical  aspect  of 
the  event,  the  great  fact  of  a  morally  altered  life.  It  is  idle, 
therefore,  to  discuss,  as  some  recent  writers  have  done,  the 
question,  whether  the  words  "dead  and  alive,"  "lost  and 
found,"  have  an  ethical  or  only  a  physical  meaning.2  That 
depends  on  who  uses  them  or  hears  them.  The  father  em- 
ployed a  mode  of  expression  which  conveyed  to  his  servants 
a  meaning  which  they  could  understand  and  appreciate,  and 
at  the  same  time  expressed  for  himself  a  thought  he  hid  in 
his  own  bosom,  as  one  with  which  hirelings  might  not  inter- 

1  rbv  fioaxov  rbv  oitivtov,  the  fatted  calf.  "  On  every  farm  was  the  calf 
that  was  being  fattened  for  the  feast  day.  Jesus  knew  rural  manners."— 
Godet. 

3  Hofmann  contends  that  the  words  are  to  be  taken  in  an  ethical  sense; 
Goebel  takes  the  contrary  view. 


ch.  ii. J  Tiie  Lost  Son.  289 

meddle.  For  him  such  words  could  not  but  mean  more  than 
met  the  ear  of  unreflecting  domestics.  But  what  did  meet 
their  ear  sufficed  to  make  them  happy.  They  sympathised 
heartily  with  their  master's  joy,  promptly  executed  his  orders 
for  the  preparation  of  a  feast,  and  then  "  began  to  be  merry."1 
All  in  that  household  were  in  holiday  humour  that  day, — 
all  but  one. 

3.  That  one  was  the  elder  son.  He  has  been  "in  the 
field  "  all  the  day  long,  so  that  he  is  ignorant  of  what  has 
happened,  till  returning  home  towards  the  evening  he  learns, 
from  sounds  which  reach  him  from  the  house,  that  some- 
thing unusual  is  going  on.  He  has  been  busy  at  work  on 
the  paternal  estate,  for  he  is  a  dutiful,  diligent,  methodical, 
plodding,  prosaic,  uninteresting  man.  Inquiring  what  the 
music  and  the  sound  as  of  dancing  means,  he  receives  from 
the  slave  to  whom  he  addresses  his  question  the  answer : 
"  Thy  brother  is  come,  and  thy  father  killed  the  fatted  calf, 
because  he  received  him  safe  and  sound."  In  the  words 
we  are  to  find  neither  a  sneer,  nor  a  studied  reserve  in 
reporting  the  facts,  as  if  in  doubt  how  the  news  would  be 
received,  but  simply  an  honest  statement  of  the  facts  as 
they  appeared  to  the  superficial  view  of  the  servile  mind,  , 
which  thought  only  of  the  outward  aspect  of  the  event 
related.2  Probably  the  honest  slave  expected  that  the  tidings 
he  communicated  would  give  the  elder  son  as  much  pleasure 
as  they  gave  himself.  If  he  did,  he  was  very  much  mistaken. 
The  report  that  a  feast  had  been  extemporised,  to  celebrate 
the  ieturn  of  a  worthless  member  of  the  family,  roused  in 
the  virtuous  man  a  storm  of  indignation,  and  he  could  not 
endure  the  thought  of  appearing  in  a  company  where  a  spirit 

1  Viewing  the  return  of  the  prodigal  simply  from  the  outside  as  a  finding 
of  one  lost  for  a  time,  the  servants  in  this  parable  hold  the  place  of  the 
neighbours  and  friends  in  the  other  two  parables.  They,  regarding  the 
event  from  the  outside,  as  a  matter  of  course  sympathise  with  their 
master. 

2  Hofmann,  with  a  strange  want  of  insight,  finds  in  the  words  a  sneer 
adapted  by  a  cunning  domestic  to  the  manifest  ill-will  of  the  elder  brother. 
Meyer,  on  the  other  hand,  thinks  the  servant  showed  discretion  in  speak- 
ing only  of  the  physical  health  of  the  returned  son.  Godet,  with  superior 
discernment,  says,  the  words  of  the  servant  describe  the  fact  without  the 
moral  appreciation  which  did  not  suit  a  servant 

V 


290         The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  11. 

of  mirth  ieigned,  with  which  he  had  no  sympathy.  Strange 
that  a  brother  should  come  behind  even  a  slave  in  joy  over 
the  return  of  the  erring  one  !  And  yet  we  must  not  overlook 
the  fact,  that  in  his  very  anger  the  eldest  son  showed  himself 
morally  superior  to  the  slave.  The  slave  was  glad  because 
he  looked  merely  at  the  exterior  side  of  the  event :  a 
member  of  the  family  long  absent  from  home,  at  length 
returned.  The  son  was  angry  because  he  looked  at  the 
moral  side  of  his  brother's  history ;  at  the  cause  of  his 
absence,  and  the  sort  of  life  he  had  been  living.  For  thinking 
of  these  he  was  not  to  be  blamed ;  his  fault  lay  here,  that 
he  was  readier  to  think  of  the  sin  than  of  the  repentance, 
which  in  the  judgment  of  charity  might  be  presumed  to 
have  been  the  motive  impelling  the  prodigal  to  return.  This 
was  the  fault  of  the  Pharisees,  of  whom  he  is  the  type.  They 
thought  only  of  the  vices  of  the  class  whom  Jesus  loved, 
nevfcr  of  their  repentance,  and  hence  their  inability  to  com- 
prehend the  motives,  and  to  sympathise  with  the  feelings, 
of  Jesus.  It  was  a  fault  due  immediately  to  the  want  of 
a  hopeful  spirit  in  reference  to  the  moral  reformation  of 
the  degraded  members  of  society.  But  that  want  of  hope 
resolved  itself  ultimately  into  a  lack  of  love.  Charity  hopeth 
all  things.  Jesus  hoped  for  the  repentance  of  publicans  and 
sinners,  because  He  loved  them  deeply ;  the  Pharisees  de- 
spaired of  them  because  their  hearts  were  cold,  frozen  with 
the  pride  of  virtue.  Even  so  with  the  elder  son,  to  return 
to  him.  His  virtue  made  him  hard  and  severe,  and  unable 
to  be  forbearing,  gentle,  pitiful,  or,  to  use  the  pregnant  word 
of  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  ixtTpioitaOelv, 
towards  the  erring.1  He  thought  he  did  well  to  be  angry, 
and  therefore,  when  his  father,  on  receiving  the  servant's 
report  that  he  was  standing  without  in  sullen  humour, 
came  out  and  entreated  him  to  come  in,  his  respect  for  his 
sire  did  not  prevent  him  from  expressing  himself  in  the 
tone  of  one  who  felt  himself  deeply  injured,  dwelling  with 
not  unnatural  pride  on  the  length  and  faithfulness  of  his 
service,  and  then  complaining  that  his  devotion  had  never 
been  rewarded  with  so  much  as  a  paltry  kidling  to  make  a 
feast  with  his  friends.     Of  this  he  should  never  have  thought 

1  Heb.  v.  a. 


ch.  ii."]  The  Lost  Son.  291 

of  complaining  under  ordinary  circumstances ;  but  when  ho 
sees  how  this  worthless  fellow  is  received  and  honoured  by 
the  killing  of  the  calf  that  was  being  fattened  against  a 
family  high-tide,  as  if  no  worthier  occasion  could  be  found 
than  the  day  of  his  return,  it  is  more  than  he  can  bear  in 
silence.  Verily  he  seems  to  have  a  good  case  against  hia 
father,  and  one  wonders  how  the  old  man  will  defend  himself. 
And  on  scanning  his  reply,  one  is  half  inclined  to  suspect 
that  he  is  conscious  of  occupying  a  somewhat  indefensible 
position.  For  he  speaks  with  wondrous  mildness,  seeking 
to  appease  his  angry  son  by  calling  him  child,1  and  reminding 
him  that  his  place  in  the  house  is  such  that  to  offer  him  a 
kid  would  be  no  compliment ;  for  what  was  such  a  paltry 
gift  to  one  who  was  lord  of  all  ?  But  this  mildness  does 
not  really  spring  out  of  weakness  ;  its  true  source  is  paternal 
love.  The  tender-hearted  parent  desires  to  soften  the  heart 
of  one  brother  towards  the  other.  For  this  purpose  he  first 
gently  reminds  the  offended  one  that  the  returned  prodigal 
was  his  own  brother.  "  Thy  son,"  he  had  called  the  prodigal, 
but  the  father  calls  him  "  thy  brother."  Then  with  the  soft- 
ness in  word  and  tone  which  turneth  away  wrath  he  pled  : 
"  It  was  meet  that  there  should  be  mirth  and  gladness,  for 
thy  brother  was  dead  and  is  alive,  and  was  lost  and  is  found." 
It  was  a  plea  in  justification  of  the  mirth  and  gladness  in 
which  he  and  all  the  rest  of  the  family  had  freely  indulged, 
and  also  indirectly  for  the  mirth  and  gladness  which  ought 
to  have  been,  but  was  not,  excited  by  the  good  news  in  the 
breast  of  the  elder  son  himself.2  It  was  the  wisest  plea  the 
worthy  head  of  the  household  could  have  advanced,  but 
had  he  been  disposed  to  retaliate  he  might  easily  have  found 
a  vulnerable  point.  He  might  have  said,  what  indeed  his 
words  implied,  that  in  complaining  that  he  had  never  been 
presented  with  a  kid  the  fault-finder  had  degraded  himself 
to  the  position  of  a  servant.'     Nay,  he  might  have  said  with 

1  Ver.  31.    t'ikvov. 

'  ISu  may  refer  either  to  something  which  has  happened  as  it  must 
have,  or  which  ought  to  have  happened  but  has  not.  Here  it  is  used  in 
both  senses ;  in  the  first  sense,  with  reference  to  the  father  and  the  rest 
of  the  family ;  in  the  second,  with  reference  to  the  elder  brother.  So 
Goebel. 

•  The  servile  tone  pervades  the  elder  brother's  words  throughout,  and 

a  2 


292         TIu  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  il 

perfect  truth,  that  he  was  not  the  sort  of  man  to  awaken  in 
others  the  festive  mood.  He  was  an  eminently  respectable, 
correct,  exemplary  man,  but  not  one  to  be  enthusiastic  about. 
Prosaic  himself,  he  could  never  excite  gushes  of  emotion, 
lyric  states  of  soul,  in  his  fellow-men.  The  fountains  of 
emotion  are  opened,  not  by  moral  mediocrity  and  correctness, 
but  by  wickedness  penitent,  or  by  heroic  goodness.  For  a 
great  sinner  repenting,  or  for  a  moral  hero  who  has  achieved 
great  deeds,  one  would  readily  make  a  feast,  but  scarcely  for 
a  righteous  man  like  the  elder  brother  would  one  even  so 
much  as  kill  a  fatted  calf,  not  to  speak  of  dying  oneself. 

The  elder  brother  in  the  parable  is  the  representative  of 
the  Pharisees  in  their  good  and  bad  points,  in  their  moral 
correctness,  and  in  their  severity  and  pride,  as  the  younger 
brother  is  the  representative  of  the  "  publicans  and  sinners  " 
in  their  depravity  and  repentance.  This  seems  so  evident 
to  us,  that  we  have  all  along  taken  it  for  granted.  Some, 
however,  and  notably  the  critics  who  are  always  discovering 
traces  of  tendency  in  the  Gospel,  are  of  opinion  that  the 
two  brothers  represent  not  the  Pharisees  and  publicans 
respectively,  but  Jews  and  Gentiles.  But  we  must  here,  as 
in  all  cases,  distinguish  between  the  appplications  of  which 
the  parable  admits,  and  the  application  primarily  intended. 
That  the  reference,  in  the  first  place,  is  to  Pharisees  and 
publicans  is  to  us  beyond  question  ;  but  that  the  doctrine 
of  the  parable  admitted  of  being  applied  to  Jews  and  Pagans, 
and  that  Jesus,  and  likewise  Luke,  was  conscious  of  its  applic- 
ability to  the  wider  distinction,  we  have  as  little  doubt.  The 
Pharisees  themselves  could  hardly  fail  to  discern  in  Christ's 
sympathy  with  the  degraded  class,  and  in  His  defence  thereof 
a  latent  universalism.  The  offence  they  took  at  Christ's 
conduct  was  probably  due  to  an  instinctive,  half-conscious 
perception,  that  this  new  love  for  the  sinful  portended  a 
religious  revolution,  the  setting  aside  of  Jewish  prerogative, 
and  the  introduction  of  a  religion  of  humanity  to  which  Jew 
and  Gentile  should  be  as  one.1     They  might  arrive  at  this 

in  this  he  was  a  faithful  picture  of  the  Pharisees,  whose  religion  was 
essentially  legal  and  servile  in  spirit. 

1  Reuss  says  under  '  sinners '  Pagans  are  included,  and  in  the  sense 
explained  above  we  agree  with  him. 


ch.  u.]  The  Lost  Son.  293 

conclusion  by  a  very  simple  process  of  reas  )ning.  They  them- 
selves called  Jesus  "  Friend  of  publicans  and  sinners " ;  but 
publicans  were  to  them  as  heathens,  and  '  sinners '  was  the 
epithet  they  used  to  denote  the  Gentiles.  Therefore  they 
might  readily  argue  that  the  man  who  took  such  an  interest 
in  publicans  and  sinners  could  have  no  objection  in  principle 
to  associating  with  Gentiles,  and  that  when  the  leaven  of  His 
influence  had  had  time  to  work,  the  religion  associated  with 
His  name  would  become  the  religion,  not  of  the  Jews,  but 
of  mankind.  If  they  reasoned  thus  they  reasoned  rightly 
Christ's  love  was  indeed  revolutionary  in  tendency,  and  so 
was  the  doctrine  He  taught  in  these  apologetic  parables. 
The  doctrine  that  every  penitent  sinner,  though  he  were  the 
meanest  4>f  mankind,  is  a  son  of  God,  could  only  issue  in 
the  new  humanity  of  Paul,  wherein  "is  neither  Jew  nor  Greek, 
neither  bond  nor  free,  neither  male  nor  female,  but  all  are 
one  in  Christ  Jesus."1 

It  remains  now  to  make  a  few  observations  on  the  import 
of  the  term  *  lost '  which  occurs  in  all  these  three  parables. 
It  was  a  term  frequently  employed  by  Jesus  to  denote  the 
objects  of  His  redemptive  activity.  "  I  came,"  He  said  once 
and  again,  "  to  seek  the  lost"  (to  a-rroXaikoi).  In  endeavouring 
to  appreciate  the  moral  significance  of  this  figurative  term, 
it  is  important  to  note  the  difference  between  the  second 
perfect  participle  used  passively  and  the  middle  voice  of  the 
verb  aTToKkvfxi,  as  employed  in  a  sense  peculiar  to  the  New 
Testament,  viz.  to  denote  the  future  condition  of  the  unsaved, 
as  in  the  familiar  text :  "  God  so  loved  the  world,  that  He 
gave  His  only  begotten  Son,  that  every  one  believing  in  Him 
might  not  perish  (jirf  d7ro'\Tjrat),  but  have  eternal  life."  2  The 
participle  cnroAojAos  is  used  to  denote  a  condition  of  peril,  but 
the  middle  voice  in  New  Testament  usage  denotes  absolute 
perdition.  The  state  indicated  by  the  participle  in  question 
is  one  from  which  recovery  is  possible  ;  the  state  indicated 
by  the  verb  6.ir6k\v(r6ai  or  by  the  noun  d7ro>Aeia  is  one  of 
irretrievable  loss.3  Hence  that  which  is  lost,  d7roA.&>Ao's,  is 
represented  as  the  object  of  redeeming  love.  The  Son  of 
man  came  to  seek  t6  a-noXaXos.9 

1  Gal.  iii.  28.  '  John  iii.  16. 

•  On  this  distinction  vide  Cremer's  'Dictionary^  f  NewTestament  Greek.' 

•  Luke  xix.  10 ;  cf.  Matt.  x.  6;  xv.  24. 


294  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  u. 

What,  then,  is  the  moral  condition  of  humanity  considered 
as  that  which,  while  lost,  is  yet  capable  of  being  found  and 
saved  ?  The  parables  we  have  been  considering  help  us  to 
answer  this  question.  Man,  viewed  as  the  object  of  the 
Saviour's  solicitude,  is  lost  as  a  straying  sheep  is  lost,  through 
thoughtlessness ;  as  a  piece  of  money  is  lost  to  use,  when  its 
owner  cannot  find  it ;  as  a  prodigal  is  lost,  who  in  wayward- 
ness and  self-will  departs  from  his  father's  house  to  a  distant 
land,  and  there  lives  a  life  utterly  diverse  from  that  of  the 
home  he  has  left,  and  so  living  holds  no  correspondence  with 
his  family,  but  is  content  to  be  as  dead  to  them,  and  that 
they  in  turn  should  be  as  dead  to  him.  Man  as  'lost'  is 
foolish  as  a  straying  sheep,  to  his  own  peril ;  lives  in  vain, 
not  fulfilling  the  end  of  his  existence,  like  a  lost  coin ;  is 
without  God  in  the  world,  alienated  from  God,  like  a  prodigal 
son.  As  a  straying  sheep  he  is  not  only  lost,  but  has  lost 
himself,  bewildered  like  a  traveller  in  a  snowstorm,  or  a  child 
in  a  wood.  He  has  gone  astray  not  in  wantonness  merely, 
but  in  quest  of  pasture,  seeking  after  good,  blindly  groping 
after  the  summum  bonum.  He  has  gone  further  astray  from 
that  which  he  seeks,  instead  of  coming  nearer  it.  As  a  lost 
piece  of  money,  he  is  forgetful  of  his  chief  end,  and  so  lives 
in  vain,  so  far  as  the  higher  purposes  of  life  are  concerned. 
As  a  lost  son  of  God,  he  is  not  only  witless  like  a  sheep,  and 
useless  like  a  lost  coin,  but  positively  evil-minded,  disobedient, 
undutiful,  devoid  of  right  affection,  a  lover  of  pleasure  more 
than  of  God,  one  who  banishes  God  from  his  thoughts,  and 
who  desires  that  he  may  not  be  in  God's  thoughts,  and  does 
what  he  can  to  hide  himself  from  God,  by  living  a  prayerless, 
irreligious  life,  behaving  as  a  runaway  who  holds  no  corre- 
spondence with  friends  that  he  may  conceal  from  them  his 
whereabouts.  Such  were  the  thoughts  of  Jesus  concerning 
man  when  He  described  him  as  to  clttoXwXSs.1 

1  Bengel  distinguishes  the  senses  of  the  term '  lost,'  as  used  in  the  three 
parables  respectively,  thus :  Ovis,  drachma,  Alius  perditus ;  peccator 
stupidus,  sui  plane  nescius,  sciens  et  voluntarius.  Our  interpretation 
agrees  with  his  in  the  first  and  third  cases,  but  diverges  from  it  in  the 
second — he  emphasising  the  unconsciousness  of  the  lifeless  piece  of 
money ;  we,  the  fact  that  a  lost  coin  is  lost  to  use* 


CHAPTER   IIL 

THE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  BRIDECHAMBER  | 
OR,     CHRIST'S     APOLOGY     FOR     THE     JOY     OF     HIS     DISCIPLES. 

Then  come  to  Him  the  disciples  of  John,  saying,  Why  do  we  and  the 
Pharisees  fast  oft,1  but  Thy  disciples  fast  not  f  And  Jesus  said  unto 
them,  Can  the  children  of  the  bridechamber  mourn,  as  long  as  the 
Bridegroom  is  with  them  f  but  days  will  come  when  the  Bridegroom 
shall  be  taken  from  them,  and  then  shall  they  fast?  And  no  one  put- 
teth  a  piece  of  unfulled  cloth 3  unto  an  old  garment,  for  that  whichfilleth 
up*  taketh  from  the  garment,  and  a  worse  rent  takes  place.6  Neither 
do  they  put  new  wine  into  old  skins ;  else6  the  skins  burst,  and  the 
wine  is  shed,  and  the  skins  perish  ;  but  they  put  new  wine  into  new 
skins,  and  both  are  preserved. — Matt.  ix.  14 — 17.  (LUKE  V.  33 — 39; 
Mark  ii.  18—22.) 

It  is  not  usual  with  writers  on  the  parables  to  include  among 
the  number  the  three  suggestive  comparisons  or  illustrations 
contained  in  this  remarkable  section  of  the  Gospel  History. 
But  without  disputing  the  right  of  others  to  act  otherwise,  we 
have  no  hesitation  in  giving  them  a  place  in  our  studies  on 
the  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ.  For,  if  not  fully  developed 
parables,  these  similitudes  are  at  least  parable-germs ;  a  fact 
recognised  by  one  of   the  Evangelists,  who  applies  the  terra 

1  woMd,  much  :  ttvkvA,  in  Luke  (v.  33). 

•  Luke  adds  lv  Utivat*  rale  fin'spaig,  "those  days;"  Mark,  tv  licuvy  r§ 
fipepf,  "  in  that  day  :  "  the  repetition  adds  solemnity  to  the  statement. 

3  pa/cove  dyvdpov :  so  also  in  Mark. 

4  t6  irXrjpiona  avrov  =»  the  patch  which  fills  the  hole  in  the  garment. 
Mark  says,  "  that  which  fills  up  (rit  7rX»jpu>/4a)  takes  from  it,  the  new  from 
the  old  (ri  Kawbv  rov  iraXaiov).  The  mode  of  expression  in  this  parable,  as 
reported,  is  somewhat  obscure  throughout. 

'  jf"pov  a-)(i<rfM  yivercu. 

*  tl  Sk  piiyi,  or  at  least  if  they  don't  attend  to  this  rule. 


9,g6  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  n 

parabld  to  the  second  and  third  of  the  three,  the  new  patch 
on  the  worn-out  garment,  and  the  new  wine  in  the  old  skins. 
And  what  is  lacking  in  the  artistic  finish  of  these  parable- 
germs  is  fully  compensated  for  by  their  number,  which  is  a 
significant  hint  of  the  importance  of  the  subject  to  which  they 
refer.  Once  more  Jesus  is  put  on  His  defence  with  reference 
to  departure  from  the  custom  of  the  time  by  Himself  and 
■  His  disciples,  and  this  time  as  usual  His  apology  assumes 
!  the  parabolic  form  ;  only  in  this  case  He  does  not,  as  in  His 
apology  for  loving  the  sinful,  seek  so  much  to  play  the  part 
of  a  consummate  artist  in  the  construction  of  exquisitely 
finished  parables,  but  rather  that  of  the  suggestive  original 
thinker,  throwing  out  in  rapid  succession  fruitful  ideas  which 
might  be  worked  out  by  the  hearers  themselves.  The  change 
in  the  style  was  suited  to  a  change  in  the  circumstances  ;  for 
the  new  interrogants  do  not  seem  to  have  been,  as  in  the 
former  case,  captious,  disaffected  fault-finders,  but  rather  men 
honestly  perplexed  by  a  surprising  diversity  in  the  religious 
habits  of  the  disciples  of  Jesus  as  compared  with  those  of  the 
Pharisees,  and  of  John's  disciples.  What  was  called  for  in  the 
former  case  was  an  effort  to  make  a  moral  and  emotional 
impression,  and  hence  the  artistic  beauty  and  the  pathos  of 
the  parables  last  considered :  what  is  needed  in  the  present 
case,  on  the  other  hand,  is  instruction  in  the  form  of  hints  at 
the  true  cause  of  the  conduct  animadverted  on,  and  at  the 
principles  applicable  to  such  a  matter  as  the  practice  of  fast- 
ing. And  the  instruction  given  is  admirably  adapted  to  its 
purpose.  No  hints  could  be  more  suggestive  or  stimulative 
of  thought,  more  pregnant  with  deep  meanings  far-reaching 
in  their  application,  more  illustrative  of  the  originality  of  the 
speaker,  and  more  surely  indicative  that  a  great  outstanding 
characteristic  of  the  kingdom,  a  cardinal  feature  of  the  new 
movement  heralded  by  the  Man  who  was  such  a  puzzle  to  His 
contemporaries,  was  pointed  at.  We  should  be  very  sorry 
indeed  not  to  have  a  good  excuse  for  including  in  our  scheme 
these  three  parable-germs — the  children  of  the  bridechamber, 
the  new  patch  on  the  worn  garment,  and  the  new  wine  in  the  old 
skins. 

Of  these  parable-germs  any  one  might  have  been  selected 
to  be  the  title  of  this  chapter;  but  after  due  consideration  we 


ch.  1H.1     The  Children  of  the  Bridechamber.         itf 

have  deemed  the  first  worthiest  of  the  honour,  not  merely 
because  it  is  the  first,  but  specially  because  it  gives  us  the 
deepest  glimpse  into  the  heart  of  the  subject.  For  while  the 
second  and  third  simply  illustrate  the  general  principle  that 
incongruous  things  ought  not  to  be  combined,  that  is,  in  the 
particular  case  in  hand,  that  fasting  should  not  be  forced  upon 
men  whose  mood  it  did  not  meet,  the  first  tells  us  precisely 
what  was  the  mood  of  the  disciples  of  Jesus  which  made  fast- 
ing an  uncongenial  practice,  reveals  to  us  the  latent  spiritual 
characteristic  of  the  Jesus-circle,  which  accounted  for  this 
superficial  divergence  from  religious  custom.  And  what  then 
was  that  mood  and  characteristic  ?  It  was  JOY.  Jesus  and 
His  disciples  were  a  wedding  party ;  He  the  bridegroom,  they 
the  sons  of  the  bridechamber,  the  bridegroom's  friends  who 
with  Him  conducted  the  bride  to  her  new  home,  and  there 
spent  a  happy  week  in  unrestrained  festivity.  For  all  this  is 
implied  in  the  question,  Can  the  children  of  the  bridechamber 
mourn  ?  The  question  is  an  implicit  assertion,  the  case  put 
is  the  actual  case,  here  as  in  all  the  parables.  Such  then 
being  the  relations  and  circumstances  of  the  parties,  of  course 
mourning,  and  therefore  by  the  law  of  congruity  fasting,  is 
out  of  the  question.  Joy,  mirth,  rules  the  hour,  and  the 
appropriate  behaviour  is  not  fasting,  but  dancing  and  song. 
But  whence  this  joy,  whence  in  other  words  the  relations 
alleged  to  subsist  between  the  Galilean  Master  and  his 
companions  ?  The  question  throws  us  back  on  the  character- 
istics of  the  kingdom  as  preached  by  Jesus.  There  is  joy  in 
the  Jesus-circle  because  the  kingdom  is  a  kingdom  of  GRACE, 
a  kingdom  the  announcement  of  whose  advent  is  good  news, 
the  very  gospel,  and  whose  presence  is  the  summum  bonum, 
signifying  God  a  Father,  and  men  His  sons.  This  idea  of 
the  kingdom,  the  one  ever  presented  by  Jesus,  was  the  true 
source  of  the  behaviour  of  His  disciples,  and  the  radical  cause 
of  the  difference  between  their  behaviour  and  that  of  John's 
disciples.  The  difference  ran  up  ultimately  into  this :  the 
diverse  conceptions  of  the  kingdom  as  preached  by  Jesus  and 
John  respectively.  Tt\G  diversity  of  their  conceptions  may 
be  very  simply  formulated.  The  kingdom  as  preached  by 
Jesus  was  good  news.  As  preached  by  John  it  was  awful 
news.     In  the  mouth  of  the  one  it  mrsjit  God  regarding  men 


298  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  u, 

as  a  Father  ready  to  bestow  upon  them  His  grace,  yea,  will- 
ing to  receive  graciously,  as  still  His  children,  though  erring, 
the  most  depraved  of  men  returning  to  Him  in  penitence.  In 
the  mouth  of  the  other  it  meant  God  coming  in  the  majesty  01 
His  justice,  to  execute  judgment ;  Messiah  coming  with  fan 
in  hand  to  sift  wheat  from  chaff,  and  with  axe  to  hew  down 
unfruitful  trees.  No  wonder  that  the  followers  of  the  two 
preachers  differed  widely  in  their  way  of  life,  the  disciples  of 
the  one  resembling  a  wedding  party  making  the  welkin  ring 
with  laughter  and  song,  the  disciples  of  the  other  resembling 
a  band  of  pilgrims  trudging  with  rueful  look  and  weary  foot 
to  the  shrine  of  a  saint  to  do  penance  for  their  sins.  No 
wonder  that  the  disciples  of  Jesus  were  a  puzzle  and  a  scandal 
to  the  disciples  of  the  Baptist ;  for  it  is  not  easy  to  understand 
or  sympathise  with  conduct  springing  out  of  a  radically 
different  spirit  to  that  which  animates  oneself.  No  wonder, 
finally,  that  Jesus  himself  was  a  mystery  to  the  Baptist  as  he 
lay  brooding  in  melancholy  fashion  in  the  prison  of  Machaerus  ; 
for  in  His  hand  was  no  axe  or  fan,  in  His  mouth  no  words  of 
terror,  in  His  heart  no  severity,  but  only  gentleness  and  pity 
dictating  deeds  of  kindness  and  messages  of  mercy. 

In  all  Christ's  teachings  can  be  found  no  more  decisive 
indication  of  the  gracious  character  of  the  kingdom  than  just 
this  parable  of  the  Children  of  the  Bridechamber.  But  we 
must  not  suppose  that  the  joyous  mood  of  His  disciples 
sprang  directly  out  of  a  clear  conception  on  their  part  of 
the  nature  of  the  kingdom.  A  kingdom  is  a  very  complex 
phenomenon,  and  the  kingdom  which  Jesus  preached  was 
as  yet  but  very  imperfectly  understood  by  those  who  followed 
Him.  Their  conscious  thoughts  about  it  were  crude  and 
mistaken,  and  what  knowledge  of  its  true  nature  they  had 
was  of  an  instinctive,  unconscious,  and  implicit  character. 
They  knew  the  kingdom  through  Jesus  the  King ;  not 
through  His  words,  but  through  the  spirit  that  was  in  Him, 
and  that  revealed  itself  in  His  whole  bearing.  They  knew 
it  as  voyagers  know  the  near  neighbourhood  of  an  unseen 
land,  by  the  sweet  odour  borne  thence  on  the  breeze.  They 
discerned  the  perfume  of  the  oil  of  gladness  emanating  from 
their  Master,  and  hence  divined  the  nature  of  the  kingdom 
which  He  came  to  found.     And  the  gladness  which  was  in 


ch.  in.]     The  Children  of  tlie  Bridechamber.  299 

Him  passed  into  them  by  sympathy.  Being  in  His  company 
they  were  infected  with  His  spirit,  and  acted  as  they  saw 
Him  act.  Their  neglect  of  fasting  was  imitative  in  its  origin, 
not  based  on  reflection.  They  acted  from  impulse,  not  from 
principle.  They  did  what  they  did  they  knew  not  why,  and 
on  being  found  fault  with  they  would  not  know  what  to 
answer.  Men  constantly  in  Christ's  company  might  be 
expected  at  length  to  understand  the  rationale  of  the  conduct 
impugned,  but  to  such  insight  they  had  not  yet  attained. 

In  the  foregoing  remarks  we  have  implied  that  the  spirit 
or  mood  of  Jesus  was  characteristically  one  of  joy.  To  some 
this  may  seem  a  very  questionable  position.  Was  not  Jesus 
the  man  of  sorrow  and  sadness  rather  than  the  man  of  glad- 
ness ?  He  was  a  man  of  sorrow ;  there  was  ever  in  Him 
a  deep  sadness,  of  whose  presence  we  have  a  significant  index 
in  the  words,  "  there  will  come  days  when  the  bridegroom 
shall  be  taken  from  them,"  which  are  an  ominous  hint  of 
a  tragic  experience  awaiting  Him  in  the  future  that  cast  its 
shadow  on  His  spirit  now ;  how  deep  a  shadow  we  may 
judge  from  the  repeated  mention  of  the  days  of  mourning, 
in  the  version  of  the  saying  given  by  the  other  Evangelists. 
But  this  deep  habitual  sadness  notwithstanding,  the  spirit 
of  Jesus  was  emphatically  joyful,  and  His  face  radiant  with 
the  oil  of  gladness.  There  was  a  sunny  brightness  in  His 
temper  as  well  as  an  undertone  of  melancholy.  And  the 
springs  of  His  gladness  were  twofold.  First  there  was  the 
joy  inseparable  from  a  religion  which  has  its  source  in  fresh 
intuitions  of  truth  and  rests  not  on  the  mere  traditions  of  men, 
the  joy  of  perfect  freedom  combined  with  absolute  devotion 
to  God,  a  joy  of  which  they  know  nothing  whose  souls  are 
imprisoned  in  a  complicated  system  of  conventional  religious 
observances  such  as  those  practised  by  the  Pharisees,  or  even 
by  the  Baptist's  disciples.  What  a  dull,  dreary,  sombre  exist- 
ence is  that  of  the  tradition-enslaved  soul,  doomed  to  perform 
the  daily  routine  of  fasting  and  praying  and  almsgiving, 
which  composes  the  dead  carcase  of  works  technically  holy ! 
But  how  inexpressibly  sweet  the  joy  of  "  religion  new  given," 
consisting  in  "a  revival  of  intuitive  and  fresh  perceptions."1 
It  is  the  joy  of  the  lark  soaring  to  heaven's  gate,  and  singing 
*  '  Literature  and  Dogma,'  p.  91. 


300        Tlie  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  il 

in  the  bright  sunshine  and  warm  air  of  summer.     It  is  a  joy 
given  to  men  in  certain  ages  to  know  in  exceptional  measure 
(happy  they  who  live  then),  and  to  none  more  than  to  Jesus 
and   His  disciples.     The  sign  of  its  presence  is  the  term  new 
applied  by  implication  in  our  parables  to  the  religious  move- 
ment   with  which  Jesus  and   His  disciples  were    identified. 
Jesus  in  effect  calls  His  cause  a  new  garment  and  a  new  vint- 
age.    He  does  this,  moreover,  not  as  one  apologising  for  His 
existence,  but  rather  as  one  asserting  His  own  importance. 
He   not   merely   concedes,   he    triumphantly   proclaims   the 
novelty  of  His  religion.     What  was  a  fault  in  the  eyes  of 
others  was  a  virtue  in  His  view.       And  here  we  have  to  note 
the  affinity  between  Christ's  spirit  and   that  of  Paul,  who 
gloried    in  the  novelty  of  the  Christian  religion  as  a  merit, 
inasmuch  as  it  was  but  the  fulfilment  of  the  prophetic  oracle 
which  proclaimed  God  to  be  the  Maker  of  new  things.1     Of 
the  same  mind   also  was  the  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews,   whose   whole   argument   is   a  vindication   of   the 
rights  of  the  new  as  opposed  to  the  prescriptive  rights  of  the 
decadent  old,  which  he  regarded  as  cancelled  and  antiquated 
by  the  bare  uttering  of   the  word   '  new '  in  the  prophetic 
oracle  of  the  new  covenant.2     This  joy  in  the  new  is  indeed 
characteristic  of  the  whole  New  Testament,  and  it  is  a  stand- 
ing characteristic  of  the  genuinely  evangelic  spirit  in  all  ages. 
Besides  this   joy  of   fresh  religious    intuition,  Jesus    also 
knew  the  not  less  intense  joy  of  love.     His  passion  for  saving 
the  lost  brought   Him  wondrous  gladness,  as  well  as  deep 
sadness.     It  was  meat  to   Him  to  create  a  spring  of  new 
spiritual  life  in  the  heart  of  any  human  being,  even  though 
it  were  but  a  publican  or  a  Samaritan  woman.     He  drank 
deeply  of  this  joy  of  redeeming  love  at  the  feast  in  Matthew's 
house  with  publicans  for  fellow-guests,  the  occasion  on  which 
our  parables  were  spoken.     "  In  the  midst  of  this  feast  of 
publicans  the  heart  of  Jesus  is  overflowing  with  joy  ;  it  is  one 
of  the  hours  when  His  earthly  life  seems  to  His  feeling  like 
a  marriage  day."  3     Generous  natures  can  appreciate  this  joy 
of  doing  good  ;  Paul  showed  that  he  appreciated  it  when  in 
his  catalogue  of  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit  he  placed  joy  next 

1  2  Cor.  v.  16:  cf.  Isa.  xliil  18,  19b 

•  Heb.  viii.  13.  •  Godet  in  loco. 


ch.  in. J     TJie  Children  of  the  Bridechamber.  301 

to  love.1  It  was  a  true  instinct  which  guided  him  in  the 
collocation,  for  where  the  spirit  of  beneficence  is,  there  inevit- 
ably will  be  the  spirit  of  gladness.  Christ  could  not  be  full 
of  grace  without  being  also  full  of  joy. 

In  a  faint  degree  the  disciples  were  partakers  of  their 
Master's  joy  in  both  aspects.  They  knew  a  little,  as  yet 
only  a  little,  of  the  joy  of  fresh  religious  intuition,  and  of  the 
liberty  thence  accruing ;  a  little  also  of  the  joy  of  saving  the 
lost.  But  they  had  a  joy  of  their  own  distinct  from  that  of 
Jesus,  the  joy,  not  of  giving,  but  of  receiving  grace,  the  joy 
of  faith  in  the  love  of  a  Divine  Father  to  the  sinful  and 
unworthy.  And  in  proportion  as  they  experienced  this  joy 
would  they  also  experience  the  species  of  joy  first  described, 
the  joy  of  religious  liberty.  Faith  in  God's  grace  has  for  its 
natural  issue  and  consummation  that  exultant,  triumphant 
joy  which  was  so  marked  a  feature  in  Paul's  religious  con- 
sciousness, and  which  finds  such  impassioned  expression  in 
his  great  controversial  epistles — the  joy  of  the  spirit  of  son- 
ship  which  dares  to  call  God,  Father ; 2  the  joy  of  hope  which 
can  take  an  optimistic  view  of  life,  and  believe  that  all  things 
work  together  for  good  ; 3  the  joy  which  can  exult  even  in 
tribulation,  because  it  only  tends  to  develop  patience  and 
test  character,  and  so  to  confirm  hope  ;4  the  joy  last,  but  not 
least,  of  liberty  from  lazv?  of  happy  riddance  from  that  stern 
tyrannical  husband,  to  be  united  in  blessed  wedlock  to  the 
soul's  true  husband,  Jesus  Christ.8  There  are  many  in  our 
time  who  gravely  doubt  whether  the  companions  of  Jesus 

1  Gal.  v.  22.     "  The  fruit  of  the  Spirit  is  love,  joy,"  etc. 

•  Gal.  iv.  6 ;  Rom.  viii.  15.  8  Rom.  viii.  28. 

4  Rom.  v.  3.  6  GaL  iv.  5. 

6  Rom.  vii.  1 — 4.  The  idea  in  this  passage  is  essentially  the  same  as 
in  the  parable  of  the  children  of  the  bridechamber.  These  children  of  the 
bridechamber  are  from  another  point  of  view  also  the  bride,  as  the  Baptist 
himself  hinted  when  he  said,  "  He  that  hath  the  bride  is  the  bridegroom  ; 
but  the  friend  of  the  bridegroom,  which  standeth  and  heareth  him, 
rejoiceth  greatly  because  of  the  bridegroom's  voice "  (John  iii.  29). 
Olshausen  remarks  on  it  as  somewhat  surprising,  that  in  the  passage  before 
us  the  disciples  are  merely  the  irapapipfun.  He  reconciles  the  represent- 
ation with  the  other,  by  saying  that  while  with  all  believers  they  were  the 
bride,  the  first  disciples  were  the  first  rays  shed  upon  humanity  by  the 
rising  Sun  of  the  spiritual  world,  and  so  might  be  said  to  introduce  the 
heavenly  Bridegroom  to  His  earthly  bride. 


302         The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  ii. 

ever  attained  to  the  perfect  Christian  joy  of  the  Pauline 
theology,  deeming  it  rather  highly  probable  that  to  the  end 
the  original  apostles,  the  eleven,  continued  to  do  the  very 
thing  their  Master  had  treated  as  an  absurdity ;  to  combine, 
that  is,  incongruous  elements  in  their  religious  faith  and 
practice,  law  and  grace,  works  and  faith,  the  old  worn-out 
garment  of  Judaism  with  the  new  garment  of  evangelic  right- 
eousness ;  the  old  skins  of  Jewish  religious  custom  with 
the  new  wine  of  a  gospel  of  mercy  which  God  meant  to  be 
preached  to  every  creature  under  heaven.  If  this  were  in- 
deed the  case,  then  we  can  only  say  that  the  eleven  made 
little  use  of  their  opportunities  during  the  time  "  they  had 
been  with  Jesus."  For  it  cannot  reasonably  be  doubted  that 
Pauline  antinomianism,  to  use  the  word  in  an  uninvidious 
sense,  was  the  natural  outcome  of  Christ's  own  teaching,  and 
that  in  accustoming  His  disciples  to  disregard  existing  Jewish 
religious  custom  in  certain  particulars  he  was  educating  them 
for  the  ultimate  abandonment  of  the  whole  system  as  super- 
seded by,  and  incongruous  with,  the  new  order  of  things 
brought  in  with  the  era  of  grace. 

This  we  take  to  be  the  hidden  import  of  the  two  parables 
concerning  the  new  patch  on  the  old  garment,  and  the  new 
wine  in  old  skins,  though  on  the  surface  they  merely  teach 
the  general  truth  that  incongruous  elements  ought  not  to 
be  united  in  religion.  One  consideration  that  tends  to  justify 
the  ascription  to  the  two  parables  of  such  deep  significance  is 
the  fact  that  in  uttering  them  Jesus  was  defending  His 
disciples  for  divergence  from  the  religious  customs,  not  of  the 
Pharisees  only,  but  of  the  Baptist's  followers.  From  this  it 
follows,  that  the  religious  movement  inaugurated  by  Jesus 
was  a  new  thing,  new  wine,  a  new  garment,  in  reference 
even  to  the  religion  of  the  Baptist-circle.  Much  is  implied 
in  this.  If  Christ  had  called  his  religion  new  as  compared 
with  Pharisaism  it  might  have  signified  no  more  than  that 
His  religion  was  Judaism  reformed,  for  Pharisaism  was  Judaism 
^'formed.  But  John's  religion  was  itself  a  reformed  Judaism  ; 
if  therefore  Christ's  was  new  in  comparison  with  it,  it  must 
have  been  something  more  than  a  reform,  even  a  revolution, 
an  absolutely  new  thing,  having  its  roots  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment doubtless,  but  radically  diverse  in  spirit,  principle,  and 


ch.  m.3     The  Children  of  the  Bridechamber.         303 

tendency,  from  the  whole  religious  life  of  the  age  whether 
deformed  or  reformed. 

Passing  from  this  let  us  observe  the  reasons  by  which  the 
law  of  congruity  is  enforced  in  these  parables.  The  chief 
reason  is  the  incompatibility  of  the  new  with  the. old,  leading 
inevitably  to  rupture  and  waste.  But  it  is  interesting  to  note 
that  besides  this  Luke  mentions  another,  in  connection  with 
the  first  of  the  two  parables ;  viz.  the  want  of  correspondence 
or  keeping  between  the  new  and  the  old.  Besides  the  rending 
which  takes  place  in  connection  with  the  patching  of  an  old 
garment  by  a  piece  from  a  new  one,  there  is  the  further 
objection  to  the  proceeding  that  the  new  piece  will  not  agree 
or  harmonise  with  the  old.1  It  is  an  offence  against  aesthetics, 
objectionable  on  the  score  of  taste,  even  if  no  serious  result 
were  to  follow  from  the  inharmonious  combination.  The 
garment  so  patched  will  present  a  grotesque  aspect  to  be 
avoided  by  all  means.  This  recognition  of  aesthetical  con- 
siderations as  having  their  own  place  in  religion  (for  we  may 
legitimately  transfer  this  feature  of  the  parable  to  the  spiritual 
sphere)  is  well  deserving  notice,  though  in  comparison  with 
the  more  serious  consequences  resulting  from  disregard  of 
the  law  of  congruity,  it  be  but  of  subordinate  moment.  It 
is  a  word  in  favour  of  the  beautiful  from  the  author  of  our 
faith.  And  it  is  further  to  be  noted,  that  the  parable  of  the 
new  patch,  as  given  in  Luke,  conveys  to  us  an  important  hint 
as  to  the  true  source  of  beauty  and  harmony  in  religion.  A 
religious  cultus  will  only  then  exhibit  a  fair  aspect  and 
harmonious  proportions  when  it  is  all  of  a  piece,  generated 
from  one  principle,  the  embodiment  of  one  spirit,  not  an 
eclectic  patchwork  of  beliefs  and  practices  borrowed  from 
various  sources.  This  is  but  to  say  that  religion  is  only  then 
seen  in  its  native  comeliness  when  it  is  the  religion  of  the 
spirit.  Then  it  possesses  the  incomparable  attractions  of 
naturalness,   spontaneity,   free   unfettered    movement,   doing 

1  Ttp  ira\at({i  ov  avfifioviirrii  rd  lirif3\tma  rb  &irt>  row  Kaivov  (v.  36).  The  ex- 
pression might  be  interpreted  as  referring  to  the  stronger  quality  of  the 
new  cloth  leading  to  the  result  pointed  at  in  Matthew  and  Mark,  but,  as 
Godet  remarks,  it  much  more  naturally  refers  to  a  contrast  in  appearance 
between  the  two  cloths.  Besides,  as  we  shall  see,  Luke's  conception  of 
the  new  cloth  does  not  make  room  for  the  idea  of  contraction  resulting 
from  the  unfulled  condition  of  the  cloth. 


304         The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  il 

whatever  the  spirit  prompts,  and  doing  it  gracefully  and 
heartily.  How  repulsive  by  comparison  a  religion  of  mechanic- 
al habits,  of  which  no  account  can  be  given  except  that  they 
are  sanctioned  by  tradition  and  custom  ;  and  not  less,  let  us 
add,  a  religion  of  merely  negative  affected  spirituality,  whose 
mechanicalism  consists  in  avoiding  everything  savouring  of 
taste  as  sensuous,  mistaking  barbarism  for  purity.  It  is  an 
error  of  the  same  kind  in  worship,  as  that  in  religious  life 
which  makes  the  new  nature  consist  in  being  unnatural. 

Turning  now  to  the  principal  reason  for  observing  the 
law  of  congruity,  viz.  the  damage  and  loss  caused  by  the 
breach  of  it,  we  find  here  also  a  peculiarity  in  Luke's  narrative, 
in  so  far  as  the  first  of  the  two  parables  is  concerned  ;  this, 
viz.,  that  the  injury  is  done  not,  as  in  Matthew  and  Mark, 
to  the  old  garment,  but  to  the  new  one.  In  the  first  two 
Gospels  the  evil  to  be  shunned  is  the  rending  of  the  old 
patched  garment  by  the  contraction  of  the  new  piece  of 
unfulled  cloth  under  the  influence  of  moisture.  In  Luke,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  evil  is  the  spoiling  of  a  new  garment} 
from  which  a  piece  has  been  cut  out.  This  seems  a  some- 
what unnatural  turn  of  thought,  for  the  procedure  pointed  at, 
that  of  patching  an  old  coat  by  a  piece  cut  out  of  a  new  one, 
seems  too  absurd  for  any  human  being  in  his  senses  to  think 
of.  And  when  we  endeavour  to  apply  the  idea  to  the  spiritual 
situation  we  find  ourselves  somewhat  at  a  loss  in  which  direc- 
tion to  turn.  Is  Jesus  justifying  Himself  for  not  playing  the 
part  of  a  patcher  as  described  in  the  parable,  or  is  He  repre- 
senting John  as  playing  that  part ;  and  in  either  case  what  is 
signified  by  the  spoiling  of  the  new  garment  ?  If  cur  Lord 
stated  the  case  as  represented  in  Luke's  narrative  we  must  put 
upon  His  words  some  such  sense  as  the  following: — It  is 
a  folly  to  combine  the  new  doctrine  of  the  kingdom  with 
old  customs  associated  with  a  religion  of  an  entirely  different 

»  The  piece  used  as  a  patch  is  taken  from  a  new  garment,  Anb  tftariow 
kmvov,  and  the  evil  one  does  by  such  a  procedure  is  that  he  rends  the  new 
(garment)  rb  kchvov  (i/ianov)  axiati.  The  A.  V.  renders  this  "the  new 
maketh  a  rent"  (in  the  old),  which  brings  Luke  into  harmony  with 
Matthew  and  Mark.  But  this  construction  is  hardly  admissible.  Besides, 
the  new  piece  of  cloth  in  Luke's  version  does  not  possess  the  property 
which  causes  rending,  for  it  is  taken  from  a  new  garment  which  would  not 
naturally  be  made  of  unfulled  cloth. 


ch.  in.]     The  Children  of  the  Bridechamber.  305 

spirit.  The  necessary  effect  of  such  a  course  must  be  to  do 
fatal  injury  to  the  new  doctrine,  by  obscuring  its  true  nature 
and  weakening  its  influence.  We  certainly  can  imagine 
Jesus  saying  this  in  reference  to  John's  disciples,  for  the 
deprecated  line  of  action  was  just  that  which  they  pursued. 
They  believed  in  the  kingdom  preached  by  their  Master, 
and  so  far  were  on  the  side  of  the  new  movement ;  but  they 
combined  this  belief  with  Judaistic  or  Pharisaic  practice,  with 
the  result  that  their  faith  in  the  kingdom  was  practically 
neutralised,  or  extinguished  as  a  light  put  under  a  bushel. 
And  we  can  also  conceive  Jesus  saying  the  same  thing 
concerning  Himself  to  the  effect  of  justifying  Himself  for 
not  pursuing  the  policy  indicated  ;  though  not  without  quali- 
fication, for  while  He  disregarded  Pharisaic  practice  in  such 
matters  as  fasting  and  ceremonial  washing,  He  did  certainly 
accommodate  Himself  to  many  existing  usages,  which  were 
destined  to  fall  into  desuetude  when  the  spirit  of  the  new 
religion  had  had  time  to  create  for  itself  a  fitting  garment 
of  habits.1 

We  are  inclined  to  think  that  while  the  thought  to  which 
Luke  gives  prominence  in  the  first  parable  may  have  been 
glanced  at,  it  was  not  the  one  emphasised  by  the  speaker,  but 
rather  that  brought  out  in  the  version  of  Matthew  and  Mark, 
viz.  the  tearing  asunder  of  the  new  from  the  old  after  the 
patching  process  has  been  accomplished.*  In  this  form  the 
first  parable  sympathises  best  with  the  second,  for  then  it 
becomes  apparent  that  the  mischief  wrought  in  both  cases  is 
due  to  the  forces  latent  in  the  new.  Rending  in  the  one  case  is 
produced  by  the  contraction  of  the  new  cloth,  in  the  other  by 
the  fermentation  of  the  new  wine.     And  the  great  truth  in  the 

1  Godet  understands  the  parable  as  referring  to  Christ,  that  is,  as  con- 
taining a  repudiation  on  Christ's  part  of  the  role  of  a  patcher.  Hofmann, 
on  the  other  hand,  thinks  the  reference  is  to  the  Baptist,  so  that  the 
parable  contains  a  description  of  what  John  and  his  disciples  did.  They 
did  what  Jesus  declined  to  do ;  spoiled  the  new  religion  by  using  it  to  patch 
up,  or  reform,  a  worn-out  religion. 

*  So  Olshausen,  who  thinks  that  in  Luke's  narrative  our  Lord's  words 
have  undergone  modification,  with  a  view  to  assimilate  the  two  parables 
by  making  Christianity  in  each  the  chief  thing  :  the  new  garment  and 
the  new  wine.  Godet  takes  strongly  and  even  enthusiastically  the 
opposite  view. 

X 


306        The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [boor  ii. 

spiritual  sphere  thus  pointed  out  is,  that  the  attempt  to  force 
old  beliefs  and  customs  on  a  new  religious  movement  must 
ever  be  disastrous  either  to  the  old  or  to  the  new,  probably 
to  both,  in  consequence  of  the  vital  force  of  the  new  life, 
which  will  never  rest  till  it  has  rid  itself  of  bondage  to  foreign 
elements  with  which  it  has  no  affinity. 

In  the  natural  sphere  men  take  the  disruptive  forces  latent 
in  the  new  into  account,  and  so  avoid  the  risks  run  by  dis- 
regard of  the  law  of  congruity.  No  man  putteth  a  piece  of 
unfulled  cloth  on  an  old  garment,  or  new  wine  into  worn-out 
skins.  Such  prudence  is  so  much  a  matter  of  course,  that 
but  for  the  sake  of  the  spiritual  application  of  the  parables, 
it  had  been  wholly  unnecessary  to  point  out  the  consequences 
of  neglect.  But,  alas !  in  the  spiritual  sphere  the  exceptional 
man  is  he  who  has  the  wisdom  to  act  on  the  law  of  congruity. 
The  admirers  of  the  old  will  insist  on  forcing  the  new  wine 
into  old  bottles,  regardless  of  the  thousandfold  illustrations 
supplied  by  history  of  the  danger  and  folly  of  so  doing.  How 
is  it  that  a  prudence  which  is  so  common  in  natural  life  is  so 
rare  in  religion  ?  It  arises  from  failure  to  recognise  in  new 
religious  phenomena  a  new  wine  of  the  kingdom.  Once 
recognise  the  presence  of  a  new  wine,  and  the  sense  to  know 
what  to  do  with  it  may  be  expected  to  follow  ;  just  as,  once 
recognise  that  Christ  is  a  Physician  and  a  Shepherd,  and  you 
will  no  longer  wonder  that  He  takes  an  interest  in  publicans 
and  sinners.  But  the  difficulty  is  to  discern  the  true  character 
of  the  novel  in  religion.  One  is  so  apt  to  regard  it  not  as  a 
new  wine  of  the  kingdom,  but  as  a  poisonous  liquid,  the  fruit 
of  levity,  impiety,  youthful  vanity,  restless  love  of  change. 
That  it  objects  to  anything  in  the  established  beliefs  and 
customs  is  sufficient  evidence  of  its  dangerous  character. 
But  even  after  the  initial  difficulty  of  discerning  in  the  new 
the  traces  of  a  genuine  wine  of  the  kingdom  has  been  got 
over,  there  are  still  hindrances  to  be  overcome  before  the  new 
wine  shall  receive  wise  treatment.  Men  are  apt  to  say,  Why 
cannot  the  new  wine  go  into  old  skins  ?  why  should  not  forms 
of  belief  and  worship  and  modes  of  action  which  suited  the 
fathers  suit  the  children  also,  and  what  harm  can  result  from 
insisting  on  conformity  to  existing  custom  ?  This  is  the 
position  usually  assumed  virtually  or  avowedly  by  the  patrons 


ch.  in. J     The  Children  of  the  Bridechamber.         307 

of  use  and  wont.  Conservative  minds  have  a  very  inadequate 
idea  of  the  vital  force  of  belief.  Their  own  faith  having 
become  a  tame  lifeless  thing,  they  imagine  tameness  or  pliancy 
to  be  an  attribute  of  faith  generally,  and  too  often  they  do 
not  find  out  their  mistake  till  an  irrepressible  revolutionary 
outburst  causes  them  to  open  their  eyes  in  amazement  They 
insist  on  adherence  to  what  is  old  till  the  new  proves  its 
inherent  power  by  producing  an  explosion  needlessly  wasteful, 
whereby  both  wine  and  bottles  are  destroyed,  and  energies 
which  might  have  wrought  much  unmixed  good  are  per- 
verted into  blind  powers  of  indiscriminate  destruction. 

The  unwisdom  of  the  old  in  dealing  with  the  new  has  yet 
another  source :  dislike  of  the  unamiable  repulsive  elements 
characteristic  of  the  latter.  It  may  be  taken  for  granted  that 
there  are  such  elements  in  all  new  movements,  however  noble 
and  wholesome  in  the  main.  The  existence  of  defects,  im- 
perfections inseparable  from  the  initial  stage  of  the  new  life, 
is  clearly  implied  in  both  the  parabolic  emblems.  The  new 
piece  of  cloth  is  unfulled,  not  fit  for  wear.  The  new  wine  has 
to  go  through  a  process  of  fermentation  before  it  be  drinkable, 
or  at  least  in  its  present  state  it  is  very  inferior  to  the  old 
wine  in  flavour.  In  the  very  striking  sentence  with  which 
Luke's  report  of  our  Lord's  words  ends,  this  is  very  frankly 
recognised.  "  And  no  one,"  said  Jesus,  "  having  drunk  old 
wine,  wishes  new,  for  he  saith,  the  old  is  mild." x  It  is  an 
observation  full  of  kindly  humour,  rare  charity,  and  deepest 
wisdom  ;  a  candid  concession  to  the  honest  lovers  of  old  ways, 
and,  in  effect,  a  modest  appeal  to  them  to  exercise  indulgence 
towards  the  new  ways.  Had  Christians  but  entered  fully  into 
the  spirit  of  this  one  saying  of  their  Lord,  what  a  difference  it 
would  have  made  in  the  history  of  the  Church.  Then  men 
had  known  how  to  combine  preference  for  the  old  -with,  tolerance 
of  the  new,  so  as  to  give  the  new  time  to  grow  mellow  in  turn. 
But  such  wisdom  is  often  sadly  lacking  even  in  good  men, 
men  of  taste  and  culture,  the  reverent  and  devout,  themselves 
excellent  samples  of  the  old  vintage.  Such  not  unfrequently 
make  no  allowance  for  youth  and  inexperience,  but  treat  faults 

1  Luke  v.  39,  before  9i\u  many  copies  read  tiOiibg  =*  *  straightway,' 
A.V.  For  the  positive  %pr)or6c  some  MSS.  read  xpjj<rr(5r*poc-  The  positive 
is  to  be  preferred  as  more  emphatic. 

X  2 


308  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  n. 

which  are  at  worst  but  the  escapades  of  noble  energies  not  yet 
perfectly  under  the  control  of  wisdom,  as  if  they  were  un- 
pardonable sins.  Because  the  new  wine  is  as  yet  harsh  and 
fiery  they  think  they  do  well  to  spill  it,  saying  it  is  naught 
and  unprofitable.  How  much  wiser  to  give  heed  to  the  appeal 
of  the  new  wine  as  uttered  by  the  mouth  of  the  Eternal  Vine  : 
"  We  know  that  we  are  unpalatable  to  those  accustomed  to 
the  old  vintage ;  but  bear  with  us,  do  not  hate  us,  do  not 
destroy  us,  do  not  cast  us  out.  Keep  us,  we  will  mend  with 
age,  and  may  ultimately  be  as  good  to  drink  as  that  which  is 
at  present  in  use."  1 

What  'sweet  reasonableness'  is  in  that  saying  of  Jesus 
concerning  the  old  wine  and  the  new !  What  rare  qualities 
of  mind  and  heart  are  exhibited  in  all  the  sayings  spoken  by 
Him  on  this  occasion  :  what  ready  wit,  what  kindly  humour, 
what  gaiety  of  spirit,  what  profound  yet  homely  originality  of 
thought ;  what  clear  insight  into  the  significance  of  His  own 
position  and  vocation,  what  confidence  in  His  own  cause,  what 
resolute  determination  to  maintain  His  independence,  and  to 
decline  all  self-stultifying  compromises  ;  and  yet  withal  what 
patience  and  tolerance  towards  all  honest  earnest  men  who  in 
matters  of  religion  cannot  see  with  His  eyes  ! 

1  Godet  finds  in  this  saying,  recorded  alone  by  Luke,  a  third  parable, 
having  for  its  distinctive  aim  to  teach  that  the  organs  of  the  new  prin- 
ciples must  not  treat  those  of  the  ancient  order  with  harshness,  but 
remember  that  it  is  not  easy  to  pass  from  a  system  with  which  one  has 
been  identified  from  childhood,  to  an  entirely  different  principle  of  life. 
This  is  certainly  an  important  truth  which  was  often  enforced  and  habitu- 
ally acted  on  by  Paul,  and  this  sentence  may  be  used  for  the  purpose  of 
inculcating  it  on  Christians,  as  showing  how  kindly  their  Lord  treated  the 
adherents  of  the  old  order  of  things.  But  the  saying  seems  intended 
primarily  to  show  how  a  plea  for  the  toleration  of  the  new  may  be 
combined  with  recognition  of  the  merits  of  the  old,  and  in  this  view  it  is 
better  to  take  it  as  a  reflection  appended  to  the  preceding  parable  than  as 
a  new  one. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

THE  LOWEST  SEATS  AT  FEASTS,  AND  THE  PHARISEE 
AND  THE  PUBLICAN  ; 

OR,   THE   KINGDOM    OF   GOD    FOR  THE   HUMBLE. 

AT  a  Sabbath-day  feast  in  the  house  of  an  influential  and 
wealthy  Pharisee,  Jesus  spake  the  following  parable  to  His 
fellow-guests,  when  He  marked  how  they  chose  out  the 
chief  places : 

When  thou  art  bidden  of  any  one  to  a  wedding,  sit  not  down  in  the  chief 
seat,  lest  a  more  honoured  one  than  thou  be  bidden  of  himj  and  he 
that  bade  thee  and  him  come  and  say  to  thee,  Give  place  to  this  one  ; 
and  then  shall  thou  begin  with  shame  to  take  the  last  seat.  But  when 
thou  art  bidden,  go  and  sit  down  in  the  last  place,  that  when  he 
that  bade  thee  cometh,  he  may  say  unto  thee,  Friend,  come  up  hither: l 
then  shalt  thou  have  glory  before  all  thy  fellow-guests.  For  every 
one  that  exalteth  himself  shall  be  abased,  and  he  that  humbletk 
himself  shall  be  exalted. — Luke  xiv.  7 — 1 1. 

This  parable  has  not,  any  more  than  those  considered  in 
our  last  chapter,  the  honour  of  being  included  among  the 
parables  of  our  Lord  in  many  of  the  books  belonging  to  the 
literature  of  our  subject.  This  may  be  due  to  the  fact  that 
it  offers  few  topics  for  remark,  and  that  the  one  lesson  which 
it  teaches,  the  moral  enunciated  in  the  closing  verse,  is  more 

1  wpocavaj3t)9i ;  the  npog  implying  approach  towards  the  host  at  the  head 
of  the  table.  So  Field,  criticising  the  A.  V.  and  R.  V.  "  No  account," 
he  says,  "  is  taken  of  the  npbz.  It  must  have  one  of  two  values,  either 
of  addition, — ascende  adhuc  superius, — or  motion  towards — ascende  hue 
superius.  The  latter  seems  to  be  the  case  here.  The  host  comes  into  the 
room,  takes  his  place  at  the  head  of  the  table,  and  calls  to  the  guest  whom 
he  intends  to  honour,  Friend,  come  up  higher.  This  view  is  remarkably 
confirmed  by  Prov.  xxv.  7,  which  our  Lord  had  in  view." — '  Otium  Norv.' 


310  TJie  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ.   £book  ii. 

impressively  enforced  in  the  more  important  parable  of  the 
Pharisee  and  the  Publican.  It  deserves  however  at  least  a  pass- 
ing notice,  if  it  were  only  to  give  occasion  for  pointing  out 
the  prominent  place  which  the  great  truth  that  the  kingdom 
of  God  is  for  the  humble,  occupied  in  the  thoughts  of  Jesus, 
as  evinced  by  the  fact  of  His  uttering  two  parables  to  enforce 
it.  We  have  discovered  it  to  be  His  way  to  multiply  parables 
to  inculcate  truths  either  ill  understood,  or  of  cardinal  import- 
ance. We  have  two  parables  setting  forth  the  kingdom  of 
God  as  the  stimmum  bonum,  two  to  teach  the  value  of  per- 
severance in  prayer,  three  to  declare  the  joy  of  men  in  finding 
things  lost,  three  to  vindicate  the  joy  of  those  who  have 
believed  in  God's  grace.  In  like  manner  we  have  two 
parables  to  teach  that  he  who  humbleth  himself  shall  be 
exalted,  and  he  who  exalteth  himself  shall  be  abased  ;  whence 
we  may  confidently  infer  that,  in  the  view  of  Christ,  this  is 
one  of  the  great  laws  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 

On  the  surface  this  portion  of  our  Lord's  table-talk  at  the 
Sabbath  feast  wears  the  aspect  of  a  moral  advice,  rather  than 
of  a  parable.  But  it  does  not  require  lengthened  consideration 
to  be  satisfied  that  Jesus  is  not  here  performing  the  part  of  a 
mere  censor  of  manners,  but  is  following  His  true  vocation  as 
the  Teacher  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Kingdom.  Through  the 
medium  of  a  counsel  of  prudence  relating  to  ordinary  social 
life  He  communicates  a  lesson  of  true  wisdom  concerning  the 
higher  sphere  of  religion.  The  Evangelist  perceived  this,  there- 
fore he  called  this  piece  of  advice  a  parable  ;  most  legitimately, 
inasmuch  as  a  parable  has  for  its  aim  to  show  by  an  example 
of  human  action  in  natural  life,  how  men  should  act  in  the 
sphere  of  spiritual  life.  There  is  indeed  a  manifest  difference 
between  this  parable  and  all  others  hitherto  considered,  viz. 
that  it  tells  us  not  how  men  do  act  in  the  natural  sphere,  but 
how  according  to  the  dictates  of  prudence  they  should  act. 
The  guests  whom  Jesus  saw  before  Him,  and  whose  conduct 
called  forth  the  parable,  had  been  acting  in  a  different  way, 
not  prudently  sitting  down  in  a  humble  place  in  the  hope 
that  their  host  would  invite  them  to  a  place  of  greater  dis- 
tinction, but  proudly  appropriating  to  themselves  the  places 
which  they  thought  due  to  their  social  importance.  The 
morality  of  the  advice  given  to  them  was  not  high,  for  it 


ch.  iv.]  The  Lowest  Seats  at  Feasts,  311 

simply  showed  them  a  slyer  way  of  gratifying  ambition  ;  but 
low  as  was  its  moral  tone,  the  line  of  action  apparently 
recommended  was  too  high  pitched  for  most  of  those  present. 
The  prudence  prescribed,  though  worldly  in  its  spirit,  was  too 
like  genuine  wisdom  to  be  generally  practised.  The  truth 
seems  to  be  that  Christ  had  no  serious  intention  to  give  a 
lesson  in  social  deportment,  and  that  the  parabolic  element 
in  His  words  is  confined  to  this,  that  instruction  valid  only 
for  the  religious  sphere  is  couched  in  terms  which  seem  to 
imply  a  reference  to  ordinary  social  life.  At  the  table  of 
this  chief  man  among  the  Pharisees  He  has  an  excellent 
opportunity  of  witnessing  the  spirit  of  Pharisaism  in  full 
bloom ;  and  as  He  notes  its  characteristic  vanity  and  pride 
exhibiting  themselves  in  a  struggle  for  the  chief  rooms  at 
the  feast,  He  thinks  how  different  the  order  of  things  here 
from  that  which  obtains  in  the  kingdom  of  God  1  Here 
pride  grasps  at  distinction  and  gets  its  reward,  there  pride 
is  abased  and  the  humble  are  exalted.  He  puts  His  reflec- 
tions in  the  form  of  a  counsel  how  to  behave  at  feasts,  not 
that  He  expects  any  one  present  to  act  on  the  advice,  or  to 
regard  it  otherwise  than  as  the  whimsical  utterance  of  an 
eccentric  person,  to  be  received  with  a  smile.  He  knows 
that  no  proud  man  can  ever  believe  that  humility  is  the 
way  to  exaltation,  and  therefore  that  no  proud  man  ever 
will  take  that  way.  He  knows  also  that  humility  does  not 
gain  honour  among  the  worldly-minded,  that  on  the  contrary 
the  world  generally  takes  men  at  their  own  estimate,  and 
gives  to  ambition  the  first  place,  and  to  modesty  the  last 
He  understands,  consequently,  that  to  attempt  to  change 
the  customs  of  society  by  moral  advice  were  to  waste  words 
and  to  lower  Himself.  What  He  really  does  is  to  remind 
His  fellow-guests  that  there  is  a  society  in  which  humility  is 
held  in  honour  and  pride  gets  a  downsetting.  That  He  is 
thinking  of  this  sacred  society  is  apparent  from  His  manner 
of  expressing  Himself.  The  case  supposed  is  that  of  an 
invitation  to  a  wedding}  Why  a  wedding,  instead  of  an 
ordinary  feast  ?  Because  He  has  in  mind  that  kingdom  of 
heaven  which  He  more  than  once  expressly  represented  by 
the  emblem  of  a  marriage-feast,2  and  which  He  thought  of 
1  tit  yapovc.     D.  l»as  y&fiov.  »  Matt.  xxii.  I ;  xxv.  I. 


^12         The  Parabolic    Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  11. 

under  that  figure  when  He  spake  of  His  disciples  as  the 
children  of  the  bride-chamber.  Then  the  word  "  glory"  {bo£a) 
in  the  closing  sentence  of  the  parable  is  very  suggestive: 
"  Thou  shalt  have  glory  before  all  thy  fellow-guests."  Would 
Jesus  use  such  a  term  in  reference  to  the  little  triumph  of  a 
guest  at  a  common  feast  over  his  fellow-guests,  in  being 
promoted  to  a  place  of  distinction  ?  The  expression,  it  has 
been  well  remarked,  would  be  puerile,  if  it  did  not  open  up  a 
glimose  of  a  heavenly  reality.1 

THE  PHARISEE  AND  THE  PUBLICAN. 

THE  parable  of  the  Pharisee  and  the  Publican  shows  us  the 
same  spirit  which  at  the  Sabbath-day  feast  eagerly  sought 
the  first  places,  at  work  in  the  sphere  of  religion  :  the  Pharisee 
confidently  taking  for  himself  the  first  place  among  the  ranks 
of  the  righteous  and  the  devout.  On  this  account  this  history 
cannot  strictly  be  considered  a  parable,  for  in  it  is  no  com- 
parison between  action  in  the  natural  sphere  and  action  in 
the  higher  spiritual  sphere  ;  but  rather  an  illustrative  example 
of  a  certain  kind  of  action  in  the  latter  sphere,  with  a  declar- 
ation of  the  Divine  judgment  thereon.  Nevertheless  the 
Evangelist  calls  it  a  parable,  and  expositors  with  one  consent 
have  agreed  to  regard  it  as  such. 

To  certain  men  who  trusted  in  themselves  that  they  were 
righteous,  and  were  in  the  habit  of  despising  others,  Jesus 
spake  "  this  parable  : " 

Two  men  went  up  into  the  temple  to  pray,  the  one  a  Pharisee  and  the 
other  a  publican.  The  Pharisee,  having  taken  up  his  position,  * 
prayed  within  himself  thus  :  God,  J  thank  Thee,  that  I  am  not  as  the 
rest  of  men?  extortioners,  unjust,  adulterers,  or  even  as  this  publican. 
I  fast  twice  in  the  week,  I  give  tithes  of  all  that  I  acquired  But  the 
publican,  standing  6  afar  off,  would  not  so  much  as  lift  up  his  eyes 

1  Godet. 

1  araQtiQ.  The  word  implies  confidence.  Bengel :  fidenter,  loco  solito. 
Reciprocum  plus  notat  quatn  «<rr»c  neutrum  (ver.  13).  Similarly  Unger: 
iraOitc,  elatus. 

8  ©i  \01wol  t&v  ivOpuiruv,  all  but  himself  and  his  class. 

*  srwfiai,  not  tckrij/icu,  which  it  would  require  to  be  in  order  to  bear  the 
rendering  in  A.  V. 

*  Ictus,  vide  note  2 :  the  publican  stood  in  a  timid  attitude,  as  11  apolo- 
gizing for  his  existence. 


ch.  iv  ]        The  Pharisee  and  the  Publican.  313 

unto  heaven,  but  kept  smiting  his  breast ',  saying:  God,  be  merciful  to 
me  the  sinner.1  I  tell  you,  this  man  went  down  to  his  house  justified 
rather  than  the  other; »  for  every  one  that  exalteth  himself  shall  be 
abased,  and  he  that  humbleth  himself  shall  be  exalted. — LUKE  xviii. 
9—14. 

It  is  idle  to  ask  when  or  to  whom  this  parable  was  spoken. 
The  Evangelist  states  that  it  was  spoken  to  or  about  certain 
persons  who  trusted  in  themselves  that  they  were  righteous. 
It  is  evident  that  it  might  have  been  represented  with  equal 
propriety  as  spoken  to  or  about  men  of  an  opposite  spirit, 
such,  viz.,  as  were  ready  to  acknowledge  their  shortcomings. 
The  really  important  thing  to  note  is  that  this  is  a  parable 
which  sets  forth  one  of  the  great  laws  of  the  kingdom  of  God, 
viewed  as  a  kingdom  of  Grace,  that  enunciated  in  the  closing 
verse  s  "  Every  one  that  exalteth  himself  shall  be  abased  ;  and 
he  that  humbleth  himself  shall  be  exalted."  It  was  doubtless 
the  perception  of  this  fact  which  led  Luke  to  gather  up  the 
precious  fragment  and  preserve  it  in  his  basket.  Luke  was 
the  Evangelist,  as  Paul  was  the  Apostle,  of  the  Gentiles,  and 
in  collecting  materials  for  the  composition  of  his  Gospel  he 
was  ever  on  the  outlook  for  such  incidents  in  the  ministry  of 
Christ  as  tended  to  show  that  the  Gospel  was  designed  for 
the  whole  world,  and  that  it  was  fit  to  be  a  Gospel  for  the 
world.  A  salvation  to  be  preached  to  the  human  race,  a 
salvation  by  grace,  and  therefore  available  for  Gentiles  on  the 
same  terms  as  for  Jews,  these  were  the  fundamental  articles 
in  Luke's  as  in  Paul's  creed  ;  and  in  writing  the  life  of  our 
Lord  he  was  ever  intent  on  showing  that  these  doctrines  had 
a  root  in  His  teaching.  This  parable  he  rightly  considered 
fitted  to  serve  that  purpose.  The  poor  publican,  though  a 
Jew,  was  in  Pharisaic  esteem  as  an  heathen  man  ;  and  in  repre- 
senting a  penitent  publican  as  an  object  of  Divine  favour, 
Jesus  in  effect  and  in  principle  proclaimed  the  truth  :  *  There 
is  hope  in  God  even  for  Gentiles,  for  all,  who  are  objects  of 
contempt,  as  aliens  from  the  commonwealth  of  Israel,  to  the 

1  T(p  apapruXtp,  not  the  only  sinner,  but  the  man  who  is  known  by  his 
sin,  the  notorious  sinner. 

*  The  reading  here  is  very  uncertain.  T.  R.  has  ^  Uilvoc.  The  most 
probable  reading  is  that  of  K,  B,  L.  rap  Utivov.  Another  reading  adopted 
by  Tischendorf  is  ^  yao  e«7i>oc,  which  seems  to  be  a  combination  01  the 
other  two,  yap  being  a  mistake  for  nap.     The  sense  in  any  case  is  clear. 


314  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  11. 

proud  self-righteous  Jew."  Then  in  declaring  that  the  peni- 
tent publican  was  justified  rather  than  the  Pharisee  who  had 
no  sins  to  confess,  Jesus  in  effect  proclaimed  that  other  grand 
truth,  that  men  are  saved  not  by  works  of  righteousness  which 
they  have  done,  but  by  God's  mercy.  Christ's  reflection  on 
the  two  men  is  equivalent  in  drift  to  Paul's  doctrine  of  justifi- 
cation by  grace  through  faith.  It  is  not  so  clear  and  explicit 
an  announcement  of  that  doctrine  as  we  find  in  the  Pauline 
Epistles ;  but  it  tends  that  way,  it  looks  in  the  direction  of 
Paul's  do<|trine,  it  is  Paul's  doctrine  in  germ,  and  hence  the 
interest  it  awakened  in  the  mind  of  Luke,  who  was  a  thorough 
believer  in  the  Pauline  programme  :  salvation  by  grace,  there- 
fore salvation  for  all  on  equal  terms,  there  being  no  difference 
between  Jew  and  Gentile,  for  "  all  have  sinned  and  come  short 
of  the  glory  of  God." 

We  shall  best  study  this  parable  by  making  our  starting- 
point  the  judgment  of  Jesus  on  the  two  men  whose  characters 
are  so  graphically  depicted  in  it,  and  considering  in  order 
these  points :  First,  the  import  of  the  judgment ;  Second,  its 
grounds  ;  Third,  its  uses. 

I.  It  is  declared  that  the  publican  went  down  to  his  house 
justified  rather  than  the  Pharisee.  In  endeavouring  to  ascer- 
tain the  import  of  this  declaration  we  must  assume  that  it 
is  not  intended  to  call  in  question  the  statements  of  fact 
made  by  the  two  parties.  Neither  is  supposed  to  have  borne 
false  witness  for  or  against  himself,  whether  in  ignorance  or 
with  intent  to  deceive.  Even  the  self-laudatory  statements 
of  the  Pharisee  are  allowed  to  pass  unquestioned.  It  is  not 
said,  insinuated,  or  tacitly  implied  that  he  gives  himself  credit 
for  actions  which  he  has  not  performed,  or  for  virtues  which 
he  does  not  possess.  It  is  conceded  that  he  is  not  an  ex- 
tortioner, or  an  unjust  man,  or  an  impure  man,  and  that  he 
fasts  twice  a  week,  and  gives  tithes  of  all  he  acquires,  so  adding 
works  of  supererogation  to  his  virtue,  doing  more  than  the 
statute  required.1     What  is  blamed  is  not  his  statement  of 

1  The  Pharisees  fasted  on  Mondays  and  Thursdays.  The  law  pre- 
scribed only  one  regular  fast,  that  on  the  great  day  of  atonement.  The 
law  aj  to  tithes  prescribed  that  a  tenth  part  of  the  produce  of  the  fields 
and  of  the  herds  should  be  devoted  to  the  Levites  (Levit.  xxvii.  30—32  ; 
Numbers  xviii.  21,  24).  The  Pharisee  pays  tithes  of  all  he  acquires,  from 
whatever  source. 


ch.  iv.]        The  Pharisee  and  the  Publican.  315 

facts,  but  the  spirit  in  which  he  makes  that  statement,  the 
spirit  of  self-complacency.  There  is  the  less  reason  to  doubt 
this  that  the  Pharisee  is  not  represented  as  uttering  his  prayer 
aloud.  He  took  up  his  posture  and  prayed  thus  with  himself. 
Some  indeed  would  connect  the  words  differently,  so  as  to 
make  the  sentence  run — he  stood  by  himself  and  prayed  thus, 
the  isolated  position  being  supposed  to  be  the  point  our  Lord 
wished  to  emphasise  as  a  mark  of  pride.  There  seem  to  be 
no  good  grounds,  however,  for  departing  from  the  arrangement 
as  it  stands  in  our  English  version,  which  is  approved  by  the 
great  majority  of  interpreters.  But  if  irpb<;  eavrbv  is  to  be 
taken  with  Trpoa-nvxero,  the  fact  implied  is  that  the  Pharisee's 
prayer  was  mental  not  audible.  He  prayed  "  within  himself," 
even  as  "there  were  some  that  had  indignation  within  them- 
selves "  at  the  waste  of  precious  ointment  by  Mary  of  Bethany.1 
It  has  been  asked  what  was  there  characteristic  of  a  Pharisee 
in  praying  mentally  ?  2  But  this  trait  is  added  not  to  distin- 
guish the  Pharisee  from  others,  but  to  keep  the  account  given 
of  his  prayer  within  the  limits  of  verisimilitude.  Even  a 
Pharisee  would  hardly  dare  to  utter  such  a  prayer  in  the  hear- 
ing of  his  fellow-men,  speaking  as  if  he  were  the  only  good 
man,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  world  given  up  to  iniquity.  Had 
his  prayer  been  meant  for  the  public  ear  there  would  probably 
have  been  in  it  less  depreciation  of  others  and  also  less  praise 
of  himself.  But  just  on  that  account  there  would  likewise 
have  been  less  sincerity,  less  fidelity  to  the  actual  thoughts 
and  feelings  of  the  man.  However  the  Pharisee  might  pray 
in  public,  the  prayer  put  into  his  mouth  shows  us  how  he 
prayed  in  his  heart.  And  just  because  it  is  a  heart  prayer  it 
is  a  true  prayer  reflecting  his  real  belief.8  He  thinks  as  badly 
of  the  world  as  he  is  represented  ;  he  thinks  as  well  of  himself, 
and  he  does  so  on  the  ground  of  the  virtues  and  pious  practices 
for  which  he  gives  himself  credit,  with  perfect  fidelity  to  fact. 
It  is  his  self-complacency  alone,  therefore,  not  its  fact-basis, 
which  is  liable  to  question. 

1  Mark  xiv.  4.      iyavaKTovvrtc  jrpic  tavrobc 

8  Goebel  raises  this  objection  to  the  view  we  advocate  as  to  the 
connection. 

•  So  Godet.  The  Pharisee,  he  remarks,  prayed  "  tres  sincerement  (cat 
la  priere  eteit  faite  inteneurement).* 


316  The  Parabolic    Teaching  of  Christ,  [book  ii« 

The  publican's  account  of  himself  is  also  assumed  to  be 
correct     In  declaring  that  this  man  went  down  to  his  house 

justified,  our  Lord  does  not  mean  to  say :  This  publican  was 
mistaken  in  imagining  himself  to  be  so  great  a  sinner  — 
standing  in  a  timid,  abject  attitude,  as  if  apologising  for  his 
existence — calling  himself  the  sinner,  as  if  sin  were  the  one 
thing  by  which  he  was  known,  beating  on  his  breast,  and, 
under  an  overwhelming  sense  of  guilt,  not  daring  to  lift  up 
his  eyes  to  heaven.  It  is  taken  for  granted  that  the  publican's 
confession  is  true,  and  that  his  whole  demeanour  is  but  an 
appropriate  expression  of  contrition.  He  is  a  sinner  as  he 
says  in  words,  a  great  sinner  as  he  declares  by  significant 
gesture.  The  validity  of  the  judgment  pronounced  concern- 
ing him,  does  not  at  all  rest  on  the  comparative  smallness  of 
his  guilt.  Suppose  the  penitent  had  said  more  against  him- 
self sincerely  (sincerely,  observe,  for  he  might  have  said  more, 
and  in  stronger  terms,  and  meant  less),  the  verdict  had  not 
been  different.  Suppose  he  had  said  :  "lam  what  that  holy 
man  yonder  thinks  he  is  not,  an  extortioner,  unjust,  an 
adulterer.  'He  points  at  me,  to  make  a  long  story  short. 
He  has  good  right.  I  am  an  epitome  of  all  the  sins  " :  still 
the  judgment  of  Jesus  had  been  the  same. 

These  things  being  so,  it  is  clear  how  the  judgment  must 
be  understood.  It  means,  not  the  publican  is  a  just  man, 
and  the  Pharisee  an  unjust,  but  the  publican  is  nearer  the 
approval  of  God  than  the  other  who  approves  himself.  The 
approval  or  good  will  of  God  is  what  both  are  seeking.     Both 

"address  God.  The  one  says,  "God,  I  thank  Thee;"  the 
other,  "  God,  be  gracious  to  me."  The  one  expects  God  to 
endorse  the  good  opinion  he  entertains  of  himself;  the  other 
begs  God  to  be  merciful  to  him  notwithstanding  his  sin.  And 
what  our  Lord  means  to  affirm  is,  that  the  publican  came 
nearer  the  common  end  than  the  Pharisee  did  ;  that  God 
regarded  the  self-blaming  sinner  with  more  favour  than  the 
self-praising  saint ;  that  the  two  men  in  a  manner  changed 
places,  the  self-styled  just  man  being  in  God's  sight  as  an 
unrighteous  man,  and  the  self-styled  sinner  being  in  God's 
sight  as  a  righteous  man.  In  short  the  term  "justified" 
(8e5iKaift>jLi<^os)  is  used  in  a  sense  kindred  to  the  Pauline,  and 
the  comparison  between  the  two  dramatis  fersonce  has  refer- 


nu  rv. J       The  Pharisee  and  the  Publican.  317 

ence  not  to  character,  but  to  the  relation  to  God  in  which 
they  respectively  stand.1 

We  must  add  another  observation  by  way  of  determining 
the  import  of  the  judgment.  It  does  not  mean  that  the 
publican  went  down  to  his  house  thinking  that  God  regarded 
him  with  more  favour  than  the  Pharisee.  Our  Lord's  purpose 
is  to  point  out  what  God  did  indeed  think  of  the  two  men, 
not  what  they  thought  He  thought  of  them.  Stier  affirms 
that  our  Lord  meant  His  declaration  to  refer  to  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  two  parties,  in  which  the  one  was  sensible  of  his 
justification,  the  other  not.2  This  is  an  utterly  groundless 
assertion,  and  in  its  practical  tendency  most  mischievous,  as 
fitted  to  rob  the  parable  of  its  great  use  as  a  source  of  comfort 
to  contrite  souls.  It  is  moreover  a  very  improbable  assertion. 
It  is  by  no  means  likely  that  the  publican  felt  surer  of  God's 
favour  than  the  Pharisee  did.  The  Pharisee,  it  may  be 
shrewdly  suspected,  went  down  to  his  house  quite  confident 
that  God  was  as  well  pleased  with  him  as  he  was  with  himself. 
And  it  may  be  feared  the  publican  went  down  to  his  house 
still  in  an  anxious  apprehensive  frame  of  mind,  thinking  it 
hardly  possible  God  could  have  mercy  on  such  a  wretch ; 
walking  homeward  with  slow  and  melancholy  step,  and  eyes 
cast  down  to  the  ground.  Strange  state  of  mind,  it  may  be 
thought,  for  a  justified  man !  But  we  must  remember  that 
God's  thoughts  of  us  do  not  take  their  complexion  from  our 
opinion  of  them  ;  that  they  may  be  very  gracious  towards  us, 
when  we  are  unable  to  believe  it,  and  that  salvation  does  not 
depend  on  our  changing  moods,  any  more  than  the  existence 
of  the  sun  depends  on  the  presence  or  absence  of  clouds. 
We  will  return  to  this  point.     Meantime  let  us  consider — 

1  Some  commentators,  whose  minds  are  dominated  by  the  theological 
interest,  say  there  is  no  comparison,  because  there  are  no  degrees  in  justi- 
fication. This  is  too  rigid.  To  the  same  bias  is  due  the  attempt  of  Trench 
and  others  to  find  in  the  publican's  IXdadriri  fi»i  a  reference  to  a  propitiatory 
atonement.  This  is  to  overlay  nature  by  dogmatic  theology.  Goebel, 
recognising  a  comparison  in  the  expression  irap'  Uuvov,  thinks  that  the 
SiSiKatwfiivoe  points  back  to  SUaioi,  ver.  9,  and  that  the  idea  is,  the  publican 
got  a  better  righteousness  than  the  Pharisee's. 

*  '  Reden  Jesu.'  Similarly  Trench  affirms  that  the  publican  was  not 
merely  justified  in  the  secret  counsels  of  God,  but  had  a  sweet  sense  of  for. 
giveness.  &c,  &c      All  which  is  pure  assumption. 


3*8  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  H. 

2.  The  grounds  of  tJie  judgment.  Only  one  reason  is 
expressly  referred  to  by  Christ,  but  there  is  another  reason 
implied  to  which  it  may  be  well  to  advert.  It  is  this :  The 
publican's  self-dissatisfaction  had  more  truth  or  religious 
sincerity  in  it  than  the  Pharisee's  self-complacency,  and  God, 
as  the  Psalmist  tells  us,  desires  and  is  pleased  with  truth  in 
the  inward  parts.1  In  making  this  statement  we  do  not,  any 
more  than  our  Lord,  mean  to  call  in  question  the  correctness 
of  the  description  which  the  Pharisee  gives  of  his  own  moral 
and  religious  character.  We  assume  that  all  the  statements 
he  makes,  viewed  as  matters  of  fact,  are  true.  But  it  does 
not  follow  from  this  that  he  had  any  just  reason  for  self- 
complacency.  For  to  be  pleased  with  oneself  goes  a  great 
deal  further  than  to  make  some  particular  statements  of  a 
satisfactory  nature  about  one's  conduct.  It  implies  a  com- 
prehensive judgment  concerning  one's  whole  spiritual  con- 
dition to  the  effect  that  it  is  as  it  ought  to  be.  Now,  so 
far  is  this  from  being  necessarily  involved  in  an  enumeration 
of  some  favourable  particulars  concerning  myself  that  such 
an  enumeration  may  be  but  the  preface  or  prelude  to  a  heavy 
charge  which  I  mean  to  bring  against  myself,  to  a  long 
catalogue  of  confessions  which  I  feel  constrained  to  make. 
This  worshipper,  e.g.,  might  have  said  all  he  did  say  concern- 
ing himself,  and  yet  have  made  as  many  confessions  as  would 
have  put  all  self-complacent  thoughts  out  of  his  mind.  Every 
act  of  thanksgiving  might  have  been  followed  by  an  act  of 
confession,  as  thus  :  I  thank  Thee  I  have  been  preserved  from 
extortion,  but  I  confess  I  have  coveted  ofttimes  what  I  have 
not  laid  hands  on.  I  thank  Thee  I  have  not  been  an  unjust 
man,  but  I  acknowledge  that  I  am  far  from  being  a  generous 
man.  I  thank  Thee  I  am  not  an  adulterer,  but  I  confess 
that  my  heart  has  hafboured  many  wicked  thoughts.  I 
thank  Thee  that  my  lot,  my  opportunities,  and  my  habits 
differ  widely  from  those  of  the  class  to  which  this  man  my 
fellow- worshipper,  who  beats  his  breast,  belongs ;  but  I  do 
not  flatter  myself  that  had  I  been  in  his  circumstances  I 
should  have  been  better  than  he,  and  I  deplore  that  I  and 
the  class  of  which  I  am  a  member  feel  so  little  compassion 
towards  these  much-tempted  men,  that  we  content  ourselves 

»  Psal.  li.  6. 


ch.  iv.]        The  Pharisee  and  the  Publican.  319 

with  simply  abhorring  them  and  holding  aloof  from  theif 
society.  I  thank  Thee  that  it  is  in  my  heart  to  attend 
punctually  to  my  religious  duties,  but  I  acknowledge  that  my 
zeal  and  my  liberality  come  immeasurably  short  of  what 
is  due  to  Thee,  and  contrast  but  poorly  with  those  of  him 
who  centuries  ago  offered  up  this  prayer  and  thanksgiving  in 
this  holy  city :  "  Now  therefore,  our  God,  we  thank  Thee  and 
praise  Thy  glorious  name.  But  who  am  I,  and  what  is  my 
people,  that  we  should  be  able  to  offer  so  willingly  after  this 
sort  ?  for  all  things  come  of  Thee,  and  of  Thine  own  have  we 
given  Thee.  O  Lord  our  God,  all  this  store  that  we  have 
prepared  to  build  Thee  an  house  for  Thine  holy  name  cometh 
of  Thine  hand,  and  is  all  Thine  own." x  What  are  my  poor 
tithes  to  the  liberality  of  King  David,  or  what  my  religious 
devotion  compared  to  his  whose  whole  heart  was  set  upon 
building  a  temple  for  Jehovah  such  as  that  within  whose 
sacred  precincts  I  now  stand  ? 

The  self-complacent  Pharisee  made  no  such  confessions, 
was  utterly  unconscious  that  he  had  any  such  confessions  to 
make,  and  hence  we  may  with  certainty  infer  that  if  not  a 
conscious  hypocrite,  he  was  at  least  an  unconscious  one,  a 
self-deceived  man,  utterly  devoid  of  the  soul  of  true  goodness. 
For  all  the  truly  good  are  conscious  that  they  have  confessions 
to  make  which  exclude  all  boasting.  While  not  indulging 
in  indiscriminate  self-condemnation,  and  distinguishing  be- 
tween occasions  for  thankfulness  and  occasions  for  self- 
humiliation,  they  are  ever  more  sensible  of  their  shortcomings 
than  of  their  good  performances.  And  speaking  generally, 
it  may  be  said  that  a  man  confessing  sin,  is  nearer  to  true 
goodness  than  a  man  boasting  of  his  goodness.  Confession 
of  sin  is  the  homage  of  an  awakened  conscience  to  the  moral 
law ;  boasting  of  goodness  is  the  lying  vanity  of  a  foolish 
self-deceived  heart.  He  who  does  nothing  but  confess,  may 
or  may  not  have  some  good  qualities  which  he  might  have 
specified  had  he  been  in  the  humour ;  but  even  at  the  worst, 
supposing  previous  character  to  have  been  utterly  bad,  he 
who  with  his  whole  heart  says,  "I  am  a  sinner,"  hath  more 
of  God's  spirit  in  him,  than  he  who  makes  no  confession  at 
all,  and  does  nothing  but  boast. 

1  I  Chron.  xxix.  13,  14,  16. 


320  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  ii 

It  is  characteristic  of  this  self-complacent  Pharisee,  and 
another  index  of  the  want  of  truth  in  the  deeper  sense,  that 
while  apparently  unconscious  of  any  sins  of  his  own,  he  is 
very  much  alive  to  the  sins  of  others.  With  a  coarse  sweeping 
indiscriminateness  he  pronounces  all  men  but  himself  and  his 
class  guilty,  and  of  the  grossest  sins.  He  makes  himself  very 
good,  by  the  cheap  method  of  making  all  others  very  bad.  It  is 
easy  to  be  a  saint  by  comparison,  when  all  the  world  consists 
of  extortioners,  knaves,  and  adulterers.  But  what  truth  or 
delicacy  of  conscience  can  there  be  in  one  who  can  adopt  the 
method  of  an  unbridled  censoriousness  for  advancing  his 
own  reputation  ? l  It  is  sad  to  reflect  that  at  this  point  in 
the  parable  the  speaker  can  be  charged  with  no  exaggeration, 
but  has  faithfully  described  a  feature  of  the  Pharisaic  spirit 
in  every  age,  as  exhibited  both  in  individuals  and  in  com- 
munities. The  vulgar  method  of  self-exaltation  by  deprecia- 
tion of  others  has  been  and  is  too  commonly  practised. 

We  come  now  to  the  reason  expressly  stated  by  our 
Lord  in  support  of  His  judgment  concerning  the  two  men. 
"Every  one  that  exalteth  himself  shall  be  abased,  and  he 
that  humbleth  himself  shall  be  exalted."  This  statement 
is  valuable  as  teaching  that  self-praise  and  self-condemnation 
produce  the  same  effects  on  the  Divine  mind  as  they  produce 
on  our  own  minds.  When  a  man  praises  himself  in  our 
hearing  the  act  provokes  in  us  a  spirit  of  criticism  ;  when, 
on  the  other  hand,  we  hear  a  man  condemn  himself,  there 
arises  in  our  bosom  a  feeling  of  sympathy  towards  him. 
Just  the  same  effects,  Christ  gives  us  to  understand,  do  the 
same  acts  produce  on  the  mind  of  God.  And  with  His 
teaching  all  Scripture  agrees.  All  through  the  Bible  runs 
the  sentiment  so  forcibly  expressed  by  the  Psalmist :  "  Though 
the  Lord  be  high,  yet  hath  He  respect  unto  the  lowly;  but 
the  proud  He  knoweth  afar  off."2     This  Bible  doctrine  may 

1  Unger  :  De  toto  hominum  genere  quam  humillime  sentit  (i.q.  Lutherus 
notat)  turn  semet  perfectum  jam  superbit,  quod  a  flagitiis  humillimis 
liberum  se  sentit.  Hofmann  thinks  the  ol  \oiiroi  in  ver.  11  does  not  mean 
all  other  men  besides  himself,  but  men  of  another  disposition.  Perhaps, 
but  it  does  not  make  matters  much  better.  What  is  noticeable  is  the 
absence  of  all  indications  in  the  Pharisee's  language  of  an  anxiety  to  dc 
justice  to  the  characters  of  others. 

*  PsaL  cxxxviii.  6* 


ch.  iv.]        The  Pharisee  and  the  Publican.  321 

be  said  to  be  a  part  of  the  philosophy  of  justification.  It 
does  not  tell  us  the  whole  truth  on  that  subject,  but  it 
certainly  gives  us  some  insight  into  the  Divine  procedure  in 
connection  with  the  forgiveness  of  sin.  It  teaches  us  that  God 
forgiveth  sins  to  such  as  acknowledge  them,  and  imputeth 
sins  to  such  as  deny  them,  for  this  among  other  reasons, 
because  it  gives  Him  pleasure  to  exalt  those  who  humble 
themselves,  and  to  humble  those  who  exalt  themselves.  A 
very  good  reason  truly,  which  commends  itself  to  the  common 
conscience,  and  we  may  say  to  the  common  sense  of  mankind. 
Let  us  not  despise  it  because  it  is  elementary,  and  does  not 
belong  to  the  more  specific  doctrines  of  Christian  theology 
on  the  subject  of  justification.  Let  those  who  do  not  feel  at 
home  in  these  doctrines,  and  to  whom  perchance  they  appear 
not  only  mysterious  but  unreal,  lay  this  elementary  ethical 
truth  to  heart,  and  it  will  be  at  least  one  lesson  learnt  on 
a  very  important  subject.  Believe  with  all  the  heart  that 
God  forgiveth  sin  penitently  acknowledged,  because  His  moral 
nature  is  like  our  own  in  this,  that  He  scorneth  scorners  and 
giveth  grace  to  the  lowly,  is  pleased  to  save  the  afflicted  and 
to  bring  down  high  looks,  lightly  esteems  those  who  highly 
esteem  themselves  and  regards  with  favour  those  who  humble 
themselves.  It  were  well  that  men  did  lay  these  truths  more 
to  heart,  and  considered  that  he  who  judgeth  himself  shall 
not  be  judged,  that  he  who  criticises  himself  disarms  criticism, 
that  he  who  frankly  says  "  I  have  sinned "  shall  hear  no 
further  mention  of  his  sin.  So  many  imagine  that  their 
interest  lies  in  stoutly  denying  or  extenuating  sin ;  so  few 
understand  that  policy,  not  to  say  truth,  dictates  rather  the 
use  of  such  a  prayer  as  that  of  the  Psalmist,  "  For  Thy  name's 
sake,  O  Lord,  pardon  mine  iniquity,  for  it  is  great."  To  deny 
sin,  wisdom  !  Nay,  it  is  utter  folly.  Consider  what  a  man 
does  who  denies  sin.  He  simply  identifies  himself  with  his 
sin,  and  compels  God  to  treat  him  and  it  as  one.  He  makes 
his  innermost  self  responsible  for  his  sin,  binds  it  like  a 
millstone  round  his  neck  to  sink  him  down  to  the  depths 
of  perdition,  gathers  it  round  his  person  like  a  burning 
garment  to  consume  him  with  the  fire  of  damnation.  But 
confess  your  sin,  say  it  is  yours,  and  you  separate  yourself 
from  it,  show  that  though  it  is  yours  it  is  not  you,  show  that 

Y 


322  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  il 

there  is  something  in  the  heart  of  your  being  that  abhors  it : 
you  cut  the  cord  which  suspends  the  millstone  about  your 
neck,  and  escape  drowning  ;  you  tear  off  the  burning  clothes 
from  your  person  and  escape  a  horrible  death  by  fire.  It  is 
well  to  have  the  courage  to  acknowledge  offences.  It  requires 
an  effort,  but  it  is  an  effort  to  which  humility  is  equal ;  for  it 
has  been  truly  said  by  a  German  writer,  that  the  essence  of 
Demiith,  humility,  is  Muth}  courage.  A  proud  man  cannot 
dare  to  say,  "  I  have  sinned,"  but  a  humble  man  can,  and  his 
daring  is  his  salvation. 

3.  Tlie  uses  of  tJie  judgment.  It  may  be  remarked  here  in 
the  first  place,  that  it  were  not  to  use  but  to  abuse  the  words 
of  Christ  to  find  in  them  a  doctrinally  complete  statement 
on  the  subject  of  justification.  We  learn  from  the  verdict 
pronounced  on  the  two  worshippers,  that  it  is  necessary,  in 
order  to  please  God,  to  be  sincere  and  to  be'iiumble,  but  we 
may  not  hence  infer  that  we  are  saved  by  our  sincerity  or 
by  our  humility.  We  are  not  saved  by  these  virtues,  any 
more  than  by  boasting  of  our  goodness,  but  by  the  free  grace 
of  God. 

From  Luke's  introduction  it  might  be  inferred  that  the 
chief  purpose  for  which  the  parable  was  spoken  was  to 
rebuke  and  subdue  the  spirit  of  self-righteousness.  To  do 
this  effectively  is  not  easy,  though  that  is  no  reason  why  it 
should  not  be  attempted.  Another  service,  however,  was  prob- 
ably also  kept  in  view  by  the  speaker,  which  was  much  more 
likely  to  be  accomplished,  viz.  to  revive  the  spirit  of  the 
contrite,  and  embolden  them  to  hope  in  God's  mercy.  This 
is  a  service  which  contrite  souls  greatly  need  to  have  rendered 
them,  for  they  are  slow  to  believe  that  they  can  possibly  be 
the  objects  of  Divine  complacency.  Such  in  all  probability 
was  the  publican's  state  of  mind,  not  only  before  but  even 
after  he  had  prayed.  He  went  down  to  his  house  justified 
in  God's  sight,  but  not,  we  think,  in  his  own.  He  had  not 
'  found  peace,'  to  use  a  current  phrase.  In  technical  language 
we  might  speak  of  him  as  objectively,  but  not  subjectively, 
justified.  In  plain  English  the  fact  was  so,  but  he  was  not 
aware  that  the  fact  was  so.     In  saying  this,  we  do  rot  forget 

1  Arndt,  "  Das  Wesen  der  Demuth  ist  Muth.*  It  is  a  prett>  play  upoo 
words,  but  it  is  more,  a  great  moral  truth. 


cif.  iv.]        The  Pharisee  and  the  Publican.  323 

that  there  is  an  instinct,  call  it  rather  the  still  small  voice  of 
the  Holy  Spirit,  which  tells  a  penitent,  "  there  is  hope  in 
God,"  "  there  is  forgiveness  with  Him  that  He  may  be  feared ; " 
"  wait  for  God,  as  they  that  wait  for  the  dawn."  But  a  man 
who  beats  his  breast,  and  dares  not  look  up,  and  stands  afai 
off  in  an  attitude  which  seems  an  apology  for  existence,  has 
some  difficulty  in  trusting  this  instinct.  To  fear  and  despond 
suits  his  mood  rather  than  to  hope.  There  are  physical 
reasons  for  this,  not  to  speak  of  spiritual  ones.  The  whole 
behaviour  of  the  publican  speaks  to  a  great  religious  crisis 
going  on  in  his  soul.  For  that  beating  of  the  breast,  and 
that  downcast  eye,  and  that  timid  posture,  are  not  a  theatrical 
performance  got  up  for  the  occasion.  They  bear  witness  to 
a  painful,  possibly  a  protracted,  soul-struggle.  But  one  who 
passes  through  such  a  crisis  suffers  in  body  as  well  as  in 
mind.  His  nerves  are  sorely  shaken,  and  in  this  physical 
condition  he  is  apt  to  become  a  prey  to  fear  and  depression. 
He  starts  at  his  own  shadow,  dreads  the  postman,  trembles 
when  he  opens  a  letter  lest  it  should  contain  evil  tidings,  can 
scarce  muster  courage  to  go  into  a  dark  room,  or  to  put  out 
the  light  when  he  goes  to  bed.  How  hard  for  a  man  in  this 
state  to  take  cheerful  views  of  his  spiritual  condition,  to 
rejoice  in  the  sunlight  of  Divine  grace  1  In  the  expressive 
phrase  of  Bunyan,  used  with  reference  to  himself  when  he 
was  in  a  similar  state,  such  an  one  is  prone  rather  to  take 
the  shady  side  of  the  street.  Is  it  improbable  that  one  object 
Christ  had  in  view  in  uttering  this  parable  and  the  judgment 
with  which  it  winds  up,  was  to  take  such  contrite  and  fear- 
stricken  ones  by  the  hand  and  conduct  them  over  to  the 
sunny  side  ?  There  are  some  who  are  stupid  enough  to  take 
unfavourable  views  of  the  spiritual  state  of  such  as  walk 
in  darkness  and  have  no  light,  punishing  them  for  their  de- 
spondency by  declaring  them  to  be  under  the  frown  of  the 
Almighty.  But  Jesus  was  not  one  who  could  thus  break  the 
bruised  reed  or  quench  the  smoking  taper.  The  spectacle  of 
a  publican  repenting  of  his  sin,  but  hardly  daring  to  hope 
for  pardon,  would  excite  the  deepest  sympathy  in  His  breast 
Far  from  harshly  condemning  him  for  his  despairing  mood, 
He  would  witness  with  respect  the  tremendous  earnestness 
of  his  repentance,  and  with  pity  the  acuteness  of  his  mental 

Y  2 


j 24         The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  ii. 

oufferings,  and  He  would  seek  to  convince  him  that  God's 
thoughts  towards  him  were  such  as  His  own.  Think  not, 
He  would  say  to  him,  that  God  casts  the  poor,  nervous, 
trembling,  desponding  penitent  out  of  His  sympathies.  Nay  ! 
the  Lord  is  nigh  unto  them  that  are  of  a  broken  heart.  If 
they  be  too  sad  to  walk  in  the  sun,  He  takes  the  shade  along 
with  them  ;  for  He  is  not  as  the  heartless  men  of  the  world, 
who  desert  a  poor  unfortunate  in  his  time  of  need.  He  loves 
the  company  of  the  sad  better  than  the  society  of  the  gay, 
and  He  is  ever  with  them,  though  in  their  melancholy  they 
know  it  not :  with  them  to  comfort  and  exalt,  if  not  soon,  then 
all  the  more  effectually  in  the  end.  To  suggest  such  thoughts, 
we  believe,  Christ  spake  this  parable  of  the  Pharisee  and  the 
Publican.  Who  can  tell  how  many  repentant  ones  went 
down  to  their  houses  cheered  by  the  words  which  had  fallen 
from  the  lips  of  the  sinner's  Friend  !  Let  us  use  the  parable 
for  kindred  purposes  still ;  learning  from  it  ourselves  to 
cherish  hopeful  views  concerning  such  as  are  more  persuaded 
of  their  own  sinfulness  than  of  Divine  mercy,  and  doing  what 
we  can  to  help  such  to  believe  that  verily  there  is  forgiveness 
with  God. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE    GREAT    SUPPER; 
OR,    THE    KINGDOM    FOR    THE    HUNGRY. 

ON  hearing  the  table-talk  of  Jesus  at  the  Sabbath-day  feast 
in  the  Pharisee's  house,  one  of  the  guests  took  occasion,  from 
the  reference  to  the  resurrection  of  the  just,  to  make  the  pious 
reflection  :  "  Blessed  is  he  that  shall  eat  bread  in  the  kingdom 
of  God  1 "  Whereupon  Jesus  proceeded  to  speak  the  following 
parable,  for  the  benefit  of  His  fellow-guest,  and  all  the  rest 
who  were  present  :— 

A  certain  man  made  a  great  supper?  and  bade  many :  and  sent  his 
servant  at  supper  time,  to  say  to  them  that  were  bidden,  Come,  for  all 
things  are  now  ready.  And  they  all  with  one  consent 2  began  to 
make  excuse.  The  first  said  unto  him,  I  have  bought  afield,  and  must 
needs  go  to  see  it :  I  pray  thee  have  me  excused.  And  another  said,  1 
have  bought  five  yoke  of  oxen,  and  I  go  to  prove  them  :  J  pray  thee  have 
me  excused.  And  another  said,  I  have  married  a  wife,  and  therefore 
I  cannot  come.  And  the  servant  returned,  and  reported  to  his  master 
these  things.  Then  the  master  of  the  house,  being  angry,  said  to  his 
servant,  Go  out  quickly  into  the  streets  and  lanes  of  the  city,  and  bring 
in  hither  the  poor,  and  the  maimed,  and  the  halt,  and  the  blind.  And 
the  servant  said,  Lord,  what  you  commanded  has  been  done,  and  yet 
there  is  room.  And  the  lord  said  unto  the  servant,  Go  out  into  the 
highways  and  hedges,  and  compel  them  to  come  in,  that  my  house  may 
be  filled.  For  I  tell  you,  That  none  of  those  men,  the  invited,  shall 
taste  of  my  supper. — Luke  xiv.  16 — 24. 

1  Itiirvov,  the  principal  meal  in  the  day,  not  necessarily  the  evening 
meal ;  at  least  that  is  not  the  point  intended  to  be  emphasised,  as  is 
evident  from  the  first  two  excuses. 

2  aizb  /uac ;  yvai/iijc,  tapSlac,  fuvqc,  or  some  such  word,  being  under 
ttood. 


326  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  11. 

This  parable  Jesus  spoke  for  the  immediate  purpose  of 
teaching  those  present  how  little  they  really  cared  for  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,  whatever  they  might  pretend.  Knowing 
well  the  stony  indifference  with  which  He  and  His  ca  ise  had 
been  treated  by  the  class  of  Jewish  society  to  which  His  host 
and  fellow-guests  belonged,  He  heard  with  impatience  the 
sentimental  reflection  which  had  just  been  uttered  concerning 
the  blessedness  of  eating  bread  in  the  kingdom  of  God.  It 
sounded  as  cant  to  His  ear,  as  a  statement,  that  is,  which, 
while  true  in  itself,  was  not  true  for  the  speaker  ;  and  it  is 
characteristic  of  all  earnest  minds  to  have  a  hearty  abhorrence 
of  cant.  The  prophet  Jeremiah,  e.  g.,  could  not  bear  to  hear 
a  godless  generation  talk  glibly  of  the  "  Burden  of  the  Lord," 
while  the  word  of  the  Lord  was  in  truth  no  burden  to  them  as 
it  was  to  his  own  heart ;  and  in  the  name  of  God  and  of 
sincerity  he  interdicted  further  use  of  the  phrase,  saying, "The 
burden  of  the  Lord  shall  ye  mention  no  more."1  It  made 
his  spirit  bitter,  and  almost  cynical,  to  listen  to  such  religious 
phraseology,  as  employed  by  men  who  had  no  comprehension 
of  its  meaning.  Similar  were  the  feelings  awakened  in  the 
breast  of  Jesus  by  the  pious  reflection  of  the  sentimental 
guest,  and  He  uttered  the  parable  as  one  who  would  say  : 
"  Think  you  so  ?  Let  Me  tell  you  how  little  many  such  as  you 
care  for  the  privilege  you  seem  to  value  so  highly." 

But  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  parable  serves  a  wider  purpose 
than  merely  to  hold  up  the  mirror  to  spurious  self-deceiving 
piety,  and  show  it  its  own  worthlessness.  There  are  elements 
in  the  parable  not  required  for  that  purpose,  but  serving 
admirably  another,  viz.  the  defence  of  the  speaker's  conduct 
in  frequenting  ofttimes  very  different  company  from  that  in 
which  He  found  Himself.  In  that  part  of  the  parabolic 
representation  which  relates  to  the  invitation  of  the  poor  from 
the  streets  and  lanes,  and  of  the  poorer  still  from  the  high- 
ways and  hedges,  Jesus  but  describes  His  own  conduct  in 
preaching  the  Gospel  to  the  publicans  and  sinners,  and 
indirectly  vindicates  the  policy  by  its  success  ;  saying  in  effect : 
"  Ye  wise  and  prudent,  holy  and  respectable  ones,  despise  the 
kingdom  I  preach ;  I  invite  therefore  the  outcasts  to  partici* 

*  Jeremiah  xxiii.  36. 


ch.  v.]  The  Great  Supper*  327 

pate  in  its  joys,  and  I  am  justified  by  their  prompt  response 
to  my  invitations." 

Viewed  didactically  these  two  uses  of  censure  and  self- 
defence  coalesce  in  one  lesson.  The  parable  teaches  that 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  not  for  the  full,  but  for  the  hungry. 
In  concrete  pictorial  form  it  declares  that  God  filleth  the 
hungry  with  good  things,  and  sendeth  the  rich  empty  away. 
In  conveying  this  lesson  it  sets  forth  another  most  important 
doctrine  concerning  the  kingdom  as  a  kingdom  of  grace. 
Indeed  we  cannot  over-estimate  the  present  parable  as  a 
contribution  to  the  illustration  of  the  gracious  aspect  of  the 
kingdom.  It  is,  in  that  point  of  view,  full  of  most  significant 
features.  Everything  is  significant  of  grace  :  the  selection  of 
a  feast  as  the  emblem  of  the  blessings  promised,  the  behaviour 
of  the  first  invited,  the  character  of  those  invited  in  the  second 
and  third  place,  and  the  avowed  motive  of  the  repeated 
invitations — the  desire  to  have  the  house  filled.  How  easy  to 
read  cff  from  these  indications  the  truths  that  the  kingdom  is 
a  free  gift  of  Divine  grace  ;  that  therefore  it  is  despised  by 
those  who  are  full,  and  valued  by  those  that  are  empty ;  that 
being  for  the  needy  it  is  offered  to  all  the  needy  alike — to  the 
most  needy,  most  urgently — a  catholic  boon  for  the  sinful 
suffering  race  of  mankind  !  Undoubtedly  we  shall  not  err  in 
our  interpretation  of  this  parable,  if  before  all  things  we 
regard  it  as  designed  to  exhibit  the  spirit  of  the  kingdom 
which  Christ  preached,  with  its  policy  of  unconventional  world- 
wide charity,  gainsaid  of  men,  but  justified  by  history. 

We  begin  our  study  of  the  parable  by  considering  first 
the  account  which  it  gives  of  the  behaviour  of  the  men  first 
invited  to  the  feast.  Now  what  strikes  one  at  the  first 
glance  in  that  behaviour  is  its  unnaturalness  or  improbability. 
Invited  to  what  is  described  as  a  great  feast  on  some  import- 
ant occasion,  instead  of  regarding  the  invitation  as  a  great 
honour,  and  making  every  endeavour  so  to  arrange  their 
affairs  that  nothing  may  occur  to  prevent  them  from  being 
present  at  the  entertainment,  all  lightly  esteem  the  privilege, 
and  begin  with  one  consent  to  invent  excuses  for  absenting 
themselves.  It  is  not  usual  with  men  invited  to  feasts  so  to 
act ;  the  very  feast  at  which  the  parable  was  spoken  suffices 
to  show   how   far  such    behaviour   diverges   from   ordinary 


328  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,   [book  11. 

practice.  Those  who  had  been  invited  to  sup  with  "  one  of 
the  chief  Pharisees  "  appear  all  to  have  presented  themselves 
punctually  at  the  supper  hour,  and  they  show  the  value  they 
put  on  the  honour  conferred  on  them  by  striving  eagerly  to 
obtain  the  best  places  at  the  table.  It  is  no  fault  in  the 
parable,  however,  that  its  representation  at  this  point  violates 
natural  probability ;  the  fault  rather  lies  with  those  who  act 
as  represented.  The  story  is  invented  to  suit  the  facts  ;  and 
if,  as  a  mere  story  of  natural  life,  it  seems  highly  improbable, 
it  is  because  men's  conduct  in  regard  to  the  Divine  kingdom 
is  not  according  to  right  reason.  And,  in  passing,  we  may 
take  occasion  to  note  the  contrast  between  those  parables 
which  apologise  for  Christ's  conduct  as  the  sinner's  friend, 
and  this  parable  which  describes  the  conduct  of  many  in 
reference  to  the  kingdom.  What  perfect  naturalness  char- 
acterises the  parables  of  the  lost  sheep,  the  lost  coin,  and 
the  lost  son !  The  shepherd,  the  housewife,  and  the  father 
act  exactly  as  we  should  expect ;  we  should  feel  surprised  if 
they  acted  otherwise.  Here,  on  the  contrary,  our  surprise  is 
awakened  by  the  behaviour  depicted,  and  we  are  conscious 
of  the  need  of  effort  to  overcome  distaste  for  the  parabolic 
representation  because  it  violates  the  law  of  probability. 
The  difference  is  due  to  this,  that  Christ's  conduct  was  in 
accordance  with  right  reason,  and  that  of  those  who  despised 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  was  not.  However  strange  Christ's 
behaviour  might  appear  to  contemporaries,  it  was  characterised 
by  '  sweet  reasonableness,'  and  therefore  it  was  easy  to  find 
parallels  thereto  in  ordinary  life,  the  naturalness  of  which 
would  be  recognised  by  every  one.  On  the  other  hand,  how- 
ever common  it  might  be  for  men  to  treat  the  Divine  kingdom 
as  the  parable  represents,  such  conduct  was  inherently  un- 
reasonable, and  therefore  it  was  difficult,  if  not  absolutely 
impossible,  to  find  a  parallel  to  it  in  natural  life,  or  to  make 
a  parabolic  representation  of  it  which  should  not  appear 
highly  improbable.1 

1  Professor  Calderwood  ('The  Parables  of  our  Lord,'  p.  102),  remark- 
ing on  the  unusual  character  of  the  occurrences  narrated  in  this  parable, 
speaks  of  the  expedients  for  supplying  guests  in  place  of  those  first  invited 
as  even  more  strange  than  the  refusal  of  the  latter.  They  are  not  so, 
however.  Lightfoot  and  Schottgen  quote  the  Talmud  in  proof  that  tha 
poor  and  wanderers  were  often  invited. 


ch.  v.]  The  Great  Supper,  329 

This  being  understood,  it  will  at  once  be  seen  that  it  is  no 
part  of  an  expositor's  duty  to  set  himself  to  invent  hypotheses 
for  the  purpose  of  removing,  or  at  least  alleviating,  the  aspect 
of  improbability  presented   by  the  behaviour  of  those  first 
invited  to  the  feast;  or  to  waste  time  in  trying  to  account 
for  conduct  which,  like  the  origin  of  sin,  is  really  unaccount- 
able.    The  unanimous  refusal  of  the  guests  to  come  to  the 
feast  is,  indeed,  hard  to  explain  on  any  conceivable  hypothesis. 
The  hypothesis,  for  example,  of  a  double  invitation,  one  a 
good  while  before  the  feast  day,  and  another  when  the  festive 
hour  was  at  hand,  will  not  avail  for  the  purpose.     Whether 
such  double  invitations  were  customary  or  not,  is  a  point  on 
which  it  is  difficult  to  arrive  at  a  certain  conclusion,  and 
concerning   which,  accordingly,  interpreters   are   divided   in 
opinion.     A   double   invitation   is   certainly  implied   in   the 
parable.     The  guests  were  first  bidden,  and  then  the  message 
was  sent  at  supper-time:    "Come,  for  all   things   are  now 
ready."     This  representation  is  in  accordance  with  the  facts 
of  Jewish  history.     The  Jewish  people  were  first  invited  by 
the  prophets  to  participation  in  the  blessings  of  the  kingdom, 
and  then  when  the  hour  of  fulfilment  came,  and  the  kingdom 
was  at  hand,  Jesus,  as  God's  servant,  appeared,  and  cried, 
"  Come  to  the  feast  long  promised,  and  now  ready."     But  it 
would  be  a  mistake  to  imagine  that  the  double  invitation  is 
meant  to  bring  the  conduct  of  the  invited  within  the  limits 
of  natural  probability.     It  is  not  fitted  to  do  this,  however  we 
conceive  of  the  two  invitations,  whether  with  some  we  regard 
the  second  invitation  as  rendered  necessary  by  the  first  being 
indefinite,  not  fixing  the  time,1  or,  with  others,  as  owing  its 
origin  to  the  dilatoriness  of  the  guests,  and  being  merely 
a  reminder  of  a  Definite  invitation  previously  given.2     It  is 
enough  to  say  that  no  custom  could  live  which  could  have 
such  utter  failure  to  insure  the  end  aimed  at  as  its  natural, 
or  even  as  a  possible,  result.     The  result  is  a  reductio  ad 
absurdum  of  the  method  supposed  to  be  adopted  to  insure 
attendance.     The  custom  of  issuing   two    invitations   could 
only  have   prevailed,  because  on  the  whole  it  was  found  to 
work  well ;  that  is,  because  it  usually  issued  in  those  invited 
to  feasts  presenting  themselves  duly  at  the  festive  hour.     If 

1  So  Goebel.  *  So  Meyer  and  Hofmann. 


33°  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  il 

so,  then  how  came  it  to  pass  in  this  instance,  that  none  of  the 
invited  rendered  themselves  at  the  feast  chamber,  but  with 
one  consent  begged  off  from  the  engagement  ?  However  the 
strange  fact  is  to  be  accounted  for,  no  supposed  customary 
double  invitation  will  suffice  to  explain  it ;  so  that  the 
question  as  to  the  actual  existence  of  such  a  custom  possesses 
only  an  antiquarian  interest.  For  the  discussion  of  such 
a  question  we  do  not  profess  either  special  competency  or 
great  inclination ;  therefore  we  content  ourselves  with  express- 
ing the  opinion  that  it  has  not  been  proved  that  it  was  usual 
to  send  a  message  at  the  last  moment,1  and  that  a  second 
message  is  represented  as  being  sent,  for  a  special  reason.  That 
reason  may  be,  as  already  hinted,  to  make  the  parabolic 
representation  correspond  more  exactly  with  the  history  of 
Israel,  or  it  may  be,  as  Godet  suggests,  to  bring  out  the 
indisposition  of  the  intended  guests.  The  hour  pre-announced, 
and  well  known  to  all,  had  arrived,  and  no  guests  had  made 
their  appearance.  Therefore  a  second  invitation  is  sent  that 
no  one  might  have  it  in  his  power  to  plead  forgetfulness,  and 
that  it  might  be  made  apparent  that  the  true  cause  of  absence 
was  indifference.  With  this  view  it  accords  that  none  of  the 
guests  does  plead  either  ignorance  or  forgetfulness,  as  they 
all  certainly  would  if  they  honestly  could,  for  either  plea 
would  have  been  a  stronger  one  than  any  of  those  actually 
advanced. 

Proceeding  now  to  consider  these  excuses,  we  observe  that 
they  are  all  of  the  nature  of  pretexts,  not  one  of  them  being 
a  valid  reason  for  non-attendance  at  the  feast.  The  engage- 
ments with  which  the  guests  were  preoccupied  were  all  in 
themselves  lawful  and  reasonable,  but  it  could  easily  have 
been  arranged,  had  the  parties  been  so  minded,  that  they 
should  not  come  into  collision  with  the  previous  engagement 

1  Goebel  quotes  Rosenmiiller  in  proof  of  the  custom  of  double  invitations, 
and  Trench,  after  Grotius,  refers  to  Esther,  chapters  v.  and  vi.  Thomson, 
*  Land  and  Book,'  states,  that  a  friend  at  whose  house  he  was  invited  to 
dine,  sent  a  message  when  the  feast  was  ready.  To  the  question,  is  this 
customary,  he  replies,  "  not  among  common  people,  or  in  cities  whose 
manners  are  influenced  by  the  West,  but  in  Lebanon  it  still  prevails.  If 
a  Sheik,  Beg,  or  Emir  invites,  he  always  sends  a  servant  to  call  you  at 
the  proper  time."  The  custom  he  represents  as  confined  to  the  wealthy 
{v.p  125). 


ch.  v.l  The  Great  Supper.  331 

to  attend  the  feast  Even  the  marriage  itself,  the  most  urgent 
affair,  could  have  been  adjusted  to  the  feast,  and  would  have 
been  by  one  who  was  in  the  humour.  The  pleas^  one  and 
all,  indicate  indifference.  The  state  of  mind  of  those  who 
advanced  them  was  this.  They  were  aware  that  they  were 
under  invitation  to  a  feast.  They  cherished  no  disrespect  to 
him  from  whom  the  invitation  came,  and  had  no  desire  to 
insult  him  by  sending  a  blunt  refusal  to  accept  his  hospitality. 
On  the  contrary  they  were  pleased  to  have  that  hospitality 
in  their  offer,  and  probably  at  the  moment  of  receiving  the 
invitation  their  intention  was  to  be  present  at  the  feast.  But 
the  feast  did  not  appear,  to  their  minds,  an  affair  of  urgent 
or  supreme  importance.  So  they  went  on  their  several  ways 
after  receiving  the  invitation  as  if  nothing  had  happened, 
forming  new  engagements,  without  even  recalling  to  their 
thoughts  the  prospective  feast,  or  asking  themselves  whether 
the  engagement  already  made,  and  those  which  they  were 
making  from  day  to  day,  were  compatible.  And  so  it  hap- 
pened that  when  the  feast-day  came,  one  found  himself  in 
possession  of  a  newly-purchased  piece  of  land  which  he  greatly 
desired  to  see,  another  had  just  bought  five  yoke  of  oxen 
whose  qualities  he  wished  to  ascertain  by  trial,  and  a  third 
had  just  got  married  to  a  wife  whom  it  would  be  altogether 
unseemly  to  leave  so  soon  after.  We  are  to  assume  that  the 
facts  were  as  stated.  It  is  not  necessary,  in  order  to  convict 
the  intended  guests  of  indifference,  to  suspect  them  of  inventing 
excuses.  Granting  the  truth  of  their  respective  allegations, 
it  is  evident  that  these  are  insufficient  reasons  for  not  going 
to  the  feast.  Can  the  visit  to  the  newly-bought  land  and  the 
trial  of  the  oxen  not  stand  over  till  to-morrow,  and  what 
bride  would  object  to  her  husband  leaving  her  for  a  few  hours 
to  attend  a  feast  in  the  house  of  one  whom  he  held  in  honour, 
and  whose  favour  it  was  important  to  secure?  Manifestly, 
those  who  advance  such  pleas  have  no  real  desire  to  attend 
the  feast.  Out  of  their  own  mouth  they  are  condemned. 
Indifference  is  their  common  sin,  and  it  is  the  sufficient 
explanation  of  their  common  behaviour.  No  need  to  seek 
for  any  other  explanation.  There  may  have  been  forgetful- 
ness  as  well  as  indifference ;  but  it  was  forgetfulness  caused 
by  indifference.     Men  do  not  forget  what  they  are  very  much 


33 *  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  ii. 

interested  in.  No  wonder  the  host  was  angry  when  the 
excuses  of  his  guests  were  reported  to  him  by  his  servant. 
The  men  whom  he  invited  had  trifled  with  him.  In  spite  of 
civil  phrases  and  flimsy  pretexts,  that  was  the  manifest  state 
of  the  case. 

Just  such  as  these  intended  guests  in  the  parable  were  the 
hearers  of  Jesus,  and  all  like-minded,  in  their  relation  to  the 
kingdom  of  God.  They  were  solemn  triflers  in  the  matter 
of  religion.  They  were  under  invitation  to  enter  the  kingdom, 
and  they  did  not  assume  the  attitude  of  men  who  avowedly 
cared  nothing  for  it.  On  the  contrary,  they  were  pleased  to 
think  that  its  privileges  were  theirs  in  offer,  and  even  gave 
themselves  credit  for  setting  a  high  value  on  them.1  But  in 
truth  they  did  not.  The  kingdom  of  God  had  not,  by  any 
means,  the  first  place  in  their  esteem.  And  so  it  came  to 
pass  that  when  Jesus  came  and  proclaimed  the  advent  of 
the  kingdom,  and  expounded  to  them  its  true  nature,  they 
turned  a  deaf  ear  to  His  message,  and  refused  to  accept  His 
invitations,  on  grounds  not  less  flimsy  than  those  advanced 
by  the  men  in  the  parable.  The  indifferent  guests  of  the 
parable  represent  the  sentimental  guest  of  the  Sabbath 
feast,  and  he,  in  turn,  was  a  type  of  his  generation,  a  fair 
sample  of  a  large  class  of  men  who  put  right  sentiment  in 
place  of  right  action  ;  who  said  to  God,  u  I  go,  Sir,  and  went 
not ; "  who  talked  much  about  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  yet 
cared  little  for  it ;  who  were  very  religious,  yet  very  worldly  ; 
a  class  of  which  too  many  specimens  exist  in  every  age. 

While  altogether  insufficient  as  excuses,  these  reasons  for 
absence  are  very  instructive  as  to  the  causes  of  indifference 
to  the  Divine  kingdom.  The  samples  supplied  do  not  by 
any  means  exhaust  the  list  of  possible  causes ;  they  are  only 
three  out  of  many,  and  these  such  as  are  most  suitable  to 
be  mentioned  in  a  parable  or  popular  story.  They  do  not 
even,  as  some  interpreters  seem  to  think,  indicate  exhaustively 
the  classes  of  causes  of  indifference.  Worldly  possessions, 
business  occupations,  social  ties,  are  certainly  very  prevalent 

*  Bleek  assumes  the  first  invited  guests  to  have  accepted  the  invita- 
tion. This,  so  far  as  the  Jewish  nation  is  concerned,  is  practically  cor- 
rect. They  had  accepted  God's  invitation  in  the  letter,  but  not  in  the 
spirit 


ch.  vj  The  Great  Supper,  333 

sources  of  religious  indifference,  but  they  do  not  account  for 
all  the  ungodliness  that  is  in  the  world.  It  may  be  questioned, 
indeed,  whether  they  were  the  chief  causes  of  the  lukewarmness 
in  reference  to  the  kingdom,  of  Christ's  immediate  hearers. 
At  all  events  it  is  certain  that  there  were  other  influences  at 
work  in  producing  the  widespread  unbelief  with  which  Jewish 
society  regarded  Jesus  and  His  teaching.  The  instructiveness 
of  the  excuses  specified  in  the  parable  is  to  be  found  not  in 
the  exhaustiveness  of  the  list,  but  in  the  suggestion  of  a 
general  idea  embracing  all  the  various  kinds  of  influence 
by  which  human  hearts  are  rendered  indifferent  to  the  chief 
end  and  good  of  life.  That  general  idea  is  preoccupation  of 
mind.1  Whatever  preoccupies  or  fills  the  mind  prevents  the 
hunger  which  is  necessary  to  the  appreciation  of  God's  feast 
of  grace.  Among  the  things  which  fill  the  mind  and  heart 
are  worldly  goods,  cares  about  food  and  raiment  and  business, 
social  relationships  and  enjoyments.  But  there  are  preoccu- 
pations of  a  more  spiritual  kind  by  which  even  the  nobler 
natures  innocent  of  vulgar  worldliness  are  kept  aloof  from 
the  kingdom  ;  preconceived  opinions,  philosophical  or  religious 
prejudices,  pride  of  virtue.  These  fill  the  minds  of  many,  and 
deaden  the  hunger  of  the  soul  for  God's  kingdom  and 
righteousness.  These  influences  were  powerfully  at  work 
among  the  contemporaries  of  Jesus,  producing  apathy  or 
dislike  towards  Himself  and  His  teaching.  He  indicated  His 
knowledge  of  the  fact  when  he  uttered  the  familiar  words, 
"  I  thank  Thee,  O  Father,  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  because 
Thou  hast  hid  these  things  from  the  wise  and  prudent."  The 
words  point  to  a  very  different  sort  of  preoccupation  from  any 
named  in  the  parable— the  preoccupation  of  the  wisdom  of 
the  world.  The  wise  men  of  Judsea  in  those  days  had  their 
minds  filled  with  cut  and  dry  notions  and  theories  about 
all  things  human  and  Divine  ;  with  a  fixed  idea  about  God, 

1  The  parable  no  more  binds  us  down  to  the  precise  forms  of  preoccu- 
pation specified  than  it  binds  us  to  understand  the  poor  invited  in  the 
second  place  as  the  literally  poor,  as  Keim  very  prosaically  does,  so  find- 
ing traces  of  Ebionitism  in  the  parable.  The  poor  represent  all  who  from 
any  cause  are  empty,  and  need  filling  with  the  good  things  of  the  kingdom. 
The  poor  in  the  literal  sense  are  referred  to  only  in  so  far  as  their  circum- 
stances exempt  them  from  many  of  the  causes  of  self-satisfaction  to  which 
the  rich  are  exposed. 


334  ^^  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    {[book  ii 

a  fixed  interpretation  of  every  important  Scripture  text,  a 
fixed  theory  as  to  the  notes  of  the  true  Messiah,  the  nature 
of  the  kingdom  and  its  righteousness.  Hence  when  Christ 
came  to  them  with  a  different  set  of  ideas  on  all  these  topics 
He  found  among  them  no  hunger  or  receptivity.  He  came 
teaching  that  God  is  a  Father,  and  His  doctrine  met  with  no 
acceptance,  because  the  public  mind  was  preoccupied  with 
the  conception  of  God  merely  as  the  High  and  Lofty  One, 
living  above  the  world.  He  came  preaching  a  righteousness 
which  springs  out  of  faith  in  God's  grace,  and  manifests  itself 
in  devoted  love  to  Him  who  proclaims  and  embodies  Divine 
grace.  What  chance  was  there  of  such  views  finding  entrance 
into  the  hearts  of  men  who  conceived  of  righteousness  as 
consisting  in  punctilious  observance  of  a  multitude  of  petty 
rules  concerning  matters  of  no  ethical  or  intrinsic  importance  ? 
He  came  offering  to  his  contemporaries,  in  His  own  Person, 
a  meek,  lowly,  suffering  Messiah,  a  man  of  sorrows  and 
tenderest  human  sympathies  ;  and  He  was  welcomed  only 
by  a  few  'babes/  ignorant,  obscure,  sinful  persons  of  no 
social  consequence,  because  the  minds  of  the  '  wise  and 
understanding'  were  preoccupied  with  an  entirely  different 
Messianic  ideal,  that  of  a  conquering  Christ  who  sought  and 
received  honour  from  the  world,  and  made  all  things  serve 
His  ambition.  In  a  word,  Jesus  came  offering  to  men  these 
supremely  valuable  boons :  a  Divine  Father,  a  Kingdom  of 
Grace,  a  Christ  who  was  the  sinner's  Friend,  and  a  righteousness 
possible  even  for  the  most  depraved,  nay,  in  which  precisely 
they  might  make  the  greatest  attainment ;  and  He  found 
no  appetite  for  these  benefits,  no  eagerness  to  come  to  the 
feast  which  He  had  spread,  because  with  reference  to  all  the 
topics  on  which  He  discoursed  men's  minds  were  full  of 
thoughts  and  beliefs  of  a  wholly  diverse  character,  where- 
with they  were  perfectly  satisfied.  Hence,  in  order  to  find 
disciples,  He  was  obliged  to  seek  them  elsewhere  than  among 
those  whom  He  described  as  the  wise  and  knowing :  not  in 
Jerusalem,  the  seat  of  legal  lore  and  Pharisaic  influence,  but 
in  northern  Galilee,  where  life  was  simpler  ;  not  among  the 
doctors  of  the  law,  but  among  the  mob  who  knew  not  the 
law ;  not  among  the  elders  who  by  long  study  had  matured 
a  system  of  opinions  which  had  become  part  of  themselves, 


ch.  v.J  The  Great  Supper.  335 

but  among  the  young  who  had  not  had  time  to  build  up  a 
system,  and  whose  minds  were  empty,  open,  and  receptive.; 
not  among  the  well-conducted  who  made  a  point  of  observing 
all  conventional  moral  proprieties,  and  prided  themselves  on 
an  orderly  and  blameless  life,  but  among  the  social  and 
moral  outcasts  who  were  glad  to  hear  that  God  was  merciful, 
and  that  there  was  hope  in  Him  even  for  the  guiltiest 
Galilean  rustics,  illiterate  laics,  open-hearted  youths,  penitent 
"  publicans  and  sinners  " — these  were  the  likely  classes  to 
yield  converts  to  a  doctrine  like  that  taught  by  Jesus.  There- 
fore He  addressed  Himself  chiefly  to  such,  and  was  by  many 
of  them  made  welcome.  And  so  it  came  to  pass  that  the 
intellectually  and  morally  empty  and  hungry  were  filled 
with  the  good  things  of  the  kingdom,  while  the  rich  in 
reputation  for  wisdom  and  sanctity  turned  away  in  indiffer- 
ence or  disdain. 

It  is  this  state  of  matters,  Christ's  activity  and  success 
among  those  of  least  account  and  poor  in  wisdom  and  sanctity, 
that  is  depicted  in  the  second  half  of  our  parable.  The  people 
in  the  streets  and  lanes  who  were  invited  in  the  second  place 
are  those  in  Judaea  who,  in  the  ways  indicated,  were  hungry 
for  such  a  feast  as  Jesus  invited  them  to  ;  those  from  the  high- 
ways and  hedges  invited  in  the  third  place  were  all  within  or 
without  Palestine — Jews,  Samaritans,  and  Pagans,  who  were 
needier  still,  and  might  be  glad  to  come  to  the  feast,  could 
they  only  be  brought  to  believe  that  it  was  meant  for  the 
like  of  them.  It  is  at  this  point  that  the  gracious  aspect  of 
the  parable  becomes  most  conspicuous,  and  it  is  that  aspect 
which  must  now  engage  our  attention.  Our  exposition  will 
consist  in  pointing  out  how  every  turn  of  the  story  and  every 
phrase  serves  the  purpose  of  accentuating  the  grace  of  the 
kingdom. 

The  first  point  to  be  noted  in  this  view  is  the  selection  of 
the  needy  and  hungry  to  be  the  recipients  of  benefit.  To  the 
citation  of  this  as  an  index  of  grace  it  may  be  objected  that 
such  parties  are  invited  only  in  the  second  place.  The 
invitation  of  them  is  an  after-thought,  a  device  forced  upon 
the  host  by  the  refusal  of  those  first  invited,  and  which  he 
will  rather  have  recourse  to  than  let  all  the  precious  dishes  he 
has  prepared  be  lost.     On  the  surface  this  is  indeed  the  state 


$$&         The  Parabolic    Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  n 

of  the  case,  and  the  fact  with  regard  to  Christ's  own  action 
was  somewhat  analogous.  We  may  say  that  He  turned  Hij 
attention  to  the  publicans  and  sinners  because  He  found, 
and  knew  instinctively  beforehand  that  He  would  find,  little 
acceptance  with  those  who  were  socially  and  morally  in 
repute.  And  when  we  look  to  the  action  of  the  apostles  in 
after  days,  more  particularly  of  Paul,  we  find  the  same  line  of 
procedure  reappearing.  Paul's  habit  was  to  offer  the  gospel 
to  the  Jew  first,  and  then  to  the  Gentile.  But  the  method  of 
procedure  does  not  in  either  case  derogate  from  the  grace  of 
the  procedure,  so  far  as  those  to  whom  the  gospel  was  preached 
in  the  second  place  is  concerned.  For  when  we  come  to 
inquire  why  Christ  met  with  so  poor  a  response  among  the 
wise  and  the  righteous,  we  discover  that  the  real  cause  lay  in 
the  gracious  nature  of  His  gospel.  The  gracious  attitude  of 
Jesus  to  publicans  and  sinners  was  not  produced  by  the  in- 
difference of  other  classes.  The  grace  went  before  the  in- 
difference, and  was  its  cause,  not  its  effect.  Jesus  came  from 
the  first  preaching  a  God  who  was  the  Father  of  men,  not 
the  patron  of  favourites,  and  a  kingdom  into  which  the  most 
depraved  might  find  admittance  on  repentance ;  and  the 
Scribes  and  Pharisees  did  not  love  such  a  doctrine — it  was 
too  humane,  too  catholic,  too  revolutionary,  too  vulgar  in  its 
sympathies  for  their  taste  ;  and  so  Jesus,  who  had  the  lower 
classes  in  His  heart  from  the  first,  was  forced  by  the  disdain 
of  the  higher  orders  to  turn  His  attention  more  and  more 
exclusively  to  them.  Similar  observations  apply  to  the  case 
of  Paul.  He  preached  first  to  the  Jews,  because  that  ap- 
peared the  natural  order  of  procedure.  But  he  preached  a 
gospel  avowedly  universal  in  its  destination,  and  offering  to  all. 
to  Jews  and  Greeks  ab'ke,  a  righteousness  not  of  works  but 
of  faith,  that  is  of  grace.  And  it  was  because  His  gospel  was 
catholic  and  gracious  that  the  Jews  rejected  it,  and  compelled 
him  to  turn  away  from  them  and  address  himself  to  the 
Gentiles.  The  truth  just  stated,  viz.  that  it  was  the  gracious 
character  of  the  gospel  of  the  kingdom  which  caused  the  un- 
belief of  those  to  whom  it  was  first  preached,  does  not  come 
out  in  the  parable.  The  parable  depicts  facts,  it  does  not  set 
forth  the  rationale  of  the  facts ;  hence  the  defect  that  the 
second  and  third  invitations  appear  as  after-thoughts,  and  the 


ch.  v.]j  The   Great  Supper.  337 

motive  appears  to  be  not  so  much  love  to  the  invited  as  a 
dislike  of  waste,  as  if  the  host  had  said  to  himself,  "  As  the 
food  has  been  prepared,  it  had  better  be  eaten  than  thrown 
away." 

Most  significant  as  indexes  of  the  grace  of  the  kingdom  are 
the  two  phrases,  "  yet  there  is  room,"  and  "  that  my  house 
may  be  filled."  These  two  words  indeed  might  be  singled 
out  as  worthy  to  be  the  mottoes  of  the  kingdom,  interpretative 
of  its  genius,  bearing  witness  to  the  vastness  of  its  charity,  and 
its  desire  to  communicate  its  blessings  to  the  greatest  possible 
number.  Doubtless  it  is  easy  here  also  by  plausible  reasoning 
to  rob  these  mottoes  of  their  significance.  It  may  be  said  of 
the  former  of  the  two  that  it  is  merely  the  word  of  a  servant. 
And  so  indeed  it  is  ;  but  it  were  a  pertinent  counter-remark 
that  it  is  the  word  of  a  servant  who  has  his  master's 
confidence,  is  intimately  acquainted  with  his  disposition,  and 
fully  sympathises  with  it.  But  without  pressing  these  con- 
siderations, there  is  enough  in  the  mere  fact  reported  by  the 
servant  to  indicate  the  gracious  mind  of  his  lord.  There 
is  still  room  in  the  guest-chamber  even  after  all  the  poor  and 
suffering  of  the  city  have  been  invited,  and  have,  as  we 
are  to  assume,  responded  to  the  invitation.  What  a  great 
chamber  that  must  be !  What  a  great  feast  must  have  been 
prepared,  and  what  a  magnanimous  man  he  must  be  who  has 
it  in  his  heart  to  prepare  such  a  feast !  The  report  of  the 
servant  is  a  sure  witness  to  the  riches  of  God's  grace,  to  the 
boundlessness  of  Divine  liberality,  the  immeasurable  dimen- 
sions of  redeeming  love  :  it  is  put  into  the  servant's  mouth  by 
Jesus  for  that  end,  not  merely  to  supply  the  motive  for  the 
next  turn  in  the  story,  in  which  the  host  commands  his 
servant  to  go  forth  to  the  highways  and  hedges  to  invite  those 
found  there  to  fill  up  the  still  vacant  places.  Only  a  great- 
hearted man  indeed  would  issue  such  an  order ;  any  other 
would  be  content  if  his  house  were  fairly  well  filled.  ■  That 
my  house  may  be  filled,"  is  the  speech  of  one  animated  by  the 
very  enthusiasm  of  hospitality.  But  this  expression,  too,  may 
seem  liable  to  cavil,  as  a  motto  expressive  of  grace.  It  may 
be  pointed  out  that  the  sequel  seems  to  imply  that  the  host's 
chief  reason  for  wishing  his  house  filled,  even  if  it  should  be 
with  vagrants  and  vagabonds  from  the  highways  and  hedge s, 

Z 


33  8         The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ.      £book  il 

is  to  spite  the  first  invited  and  exclude  them  from  the  feast 
by  cramming  the  house,  in  case  any  of  them  should  repent  his 
declinature,  and  after  all  desire  to  be  present.  And  without 
doubt  this  is  how  the  story  runs  ;  such  is  the  natural  import 
of  the  concluding  part  of  the  host's  speech — "  for  I  say  unto 
you,  that  none  of  those  men  which  were  bidden  shall  taste  of 
my  supper."  But  what  then  ?  After  all,  the  revenge  pro- 
posed is  the  revenge  of  magnanimity,  not  of  meanness  and 
malice.  If  so  minded  the  host  can  easily  exclude  the  first 
invited  without  bringing  in  any  more  guests.  The  method 
of  revenge  is  that  of  one  who  has  pleasure  in  hospitality  for 
its  own  sake,  and  loves  to  exercise  it  as  widely  as  possible. 
It  may  even  be  suspected  of  being  the  revenge  of  one  who  is 
not  quite  in  earnest  in  his  declared  purpose,  and  who  would 
make  room  even  for  the  first  bidden  if  they  came  humbly 
acknowledging  their  offence  and  seeking  admission.  We  may 
legitimately  hesitate  before  taking  this  word  spoken  in  anger 
as  the  last  word  on  the  subject.  Christ's  word,  as  an  aside 
from  the  parable,  it  certainly  is  not  ; 1  to  regard  it  as  His  is  to 
invest  it  with  much  too  serious  and  deliberate  a  character. 
It  is  a  word  put  by  Him  into  the  mouth  of  the  host  very  fitly, 
as  a  word  spoken  in  anger.  But  it  is  not  a  word  endorsed  by 
Him  as  the  whole  truth  on  the  subject  of  Israel's  future.  It 
is  important  to  bear  this  in  mind  in  order  to  the  maintenance 
of  harmony  between  the  teaching  of  Christ  and  that  of  Paul. 
For  Paul  does  not  treat  it  as  unbelieving  Israel's  final  doom 
that  she  shall  pot  taste  of  God's  supper.  He  refuses  to  believe 
that  Israel's  election  is  absolutely  cancelled,  that  her  inherit- 
ance is  finally  forfeited.  He  does  represent  the  evangelisation 
of  the  Gentiles  as  taking  place  to  spite  Israel.  But  he  believes 
that  the  spite  is  the  spite  of  love  changing  its  method  of  work- 
ing towards  its  old  end,  the  blessing  of  the  covenant  people  ; 
casting  them  out  and  putting  the  heathen  in  their  room  in 
order  to  provoke  them  to  jealousy,  and  so  bring  them  to  another 
mind,  and  induce  them  at  length  to  value  mercies  previously 

1  The  ifiiv  in  ver.  24  might  plausibly  be  adduced  in  proof  that  it  is 
Christ  who  speaks,  addressing  those  present  and  pointing  for  their  benefit 
the  moral  of  the  parable  :  "  I,  Jesus,  say  to  you  now  present,"  &c.  But 
the  form  of  expression  in  what  follows  excludes  this  construction.  The 
use  of  the  plural  must  be  accounted  for  by  the  emotional  character  of  the 
utterance*    The  host  in  his  anger  addresses  himself  to  an  ideal  audience. 


ch.  v.]  The  Great  Supper.  $$$ 

despised.1  This  Pauline  doctrine,  the  fruit  of  a  noble  patriot* 
ism  which  hoped  against  hope  for  fellow-countrymen,  must  be 
kept  in  view  in  interpreting  the  present  parable,  if  we  would 
not  make  the  Master  and  the  apostle  contradict  each  other. 
The  parable  certainly  contains  no  hint  of  the  Pauline  doctrine, 
and  that  is  one  piece  of  evidence  that  this  parable  has  not 
been,  as  some  think,  remodelled  by  Luke  to  bring  it  into  closer 
correspondence  with  Paulinism.  If,  as  certain  critics  imagine, 
the  invitation  to  the  vagrants  was  added  by  Luke  to  the 
original  parable,  in  order  to  represent  the  call  of  the  Gentiles,8 
why  did  he  stop  short  here  in  his  alterations  ?  Why  not  go 
further  in  accordance  with  the  irenical  tendency  ascribed  to 
him,  and  give  such  a  turn  to  the  last  word  of  the  host  as  to 
make  it  contain  the  idea  not  of  final  exclusion,  which  seems 
to  be  hinted,  but  of  provocation  to  repentance  ?  We  see  no 
reason  to  doubt  the  originality  of  this  feature  of  our  parable. 
We  cannot  certainly  regard  the  universalism  latent  in  it  as  a 
good  reason  for  such  doubt.  That  Christ's  teaching  was  in 
spirit  universalistic  is  admitted  ;  universalism  was  also  im- 
manent in  His  conduct,  for  His  behaviour  towards  publicans 
and  sinners  could  be  explained  only  on  principles  equally 
applicable  to  all  mankind,  irrespective  of  racial  or  other  dis- 
tinctions. The  religion  of  one  who  acted  as  Jesus  did  could 
only  be  a  religion  for  humanity.  Why  should  it  seem  sur- 
prising if  one  whose  whole  bearing  said,  "  I  am  a  man,  and 
nothing  human  is  foreign  to  my  sympathies,"  should  occasion- 
ally speak  words  universalistic  in  scope  ?  And  if  in  any  depart- 
ment of  Christ's  teaching  such  words  are  to  be  looked  for  it  is 
in  His  parables,  wherein  truth  is  at  once  revealed  and  hidden. 
We  should  not  expect  to  find  in  the  recorded  sayings  of  the 
founder  of  our  faith  any  such  explicit  statement  as  this :  My 
gospel  is  for  the  Gentiles  (except,  indeed,  in  private  instructions 
to  His  disciples  before  He  left  the  world),  because  it  was  meet 
that  the  purpose  of  grace  towards  the  outlying  nations  should 
remain  a  "  mystery  hid  in  God,"  till  the  drama  of  the 
Redeemer's  earthly  life  was  complete,  and  the  materials  for 
the  gospel  were  fully  supplied.  But  we  are  not  surprised  to 
find  mystic  hints  of  the  universal  destination  of  the  gospel  in 

*  Vide  Romans  xi.  II — 14.    The  whole  passage  is  very  instructive  in 
its  bearing  oh  the  subject  of  election.  *  So  Hilgenfeld, '  Einleitung.' 

Z   2 


3-f°  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  h. 

such  words  as  these  :  "  Ye  are  the  salt  of  the  earth,"  "  Ye  are 
the  light  of  the  world,"  "  The  field  is  the  world  ; "  or  in 
parables  of  grace  like  this,  telling  of  invitations  to  the  great 
feast  addressed  even  to  homeless,  characterless  vagrants  whose 
food  was  what  they  could  pick  up,  beg,  or  steal,  and  whose 
couch  was  beneath  the  hedge  on  the  highway. 

Yet  another  index  of  the  grace  of  the  kingdom  may  be 
found  in  the  direction  given  to  the  servant  with  reference  to 
these  vagrants,  to  "  compel  them  to  come  in."  What  insight 
into  the  secret  thoughts,  what  sympathy  with  the  miseries 
of  the  abject  class,  is  revealed  in  these  words !  True,  as  it 
stands  in  the  parable,  the  direction  seems  to  have  reference 
rather  to  the  exigencies  of  the  host  than  to  the  circumstances 
of  the  intended  guests.  It  seems  to  mean  :  Be  urgent  with 
them  and  bring  them  quickly,  for  time  passes,  and  the  feast 
is  getting  out  of  season  ;  take  no  refusal,  for  I  wish  my  house 
filled,  so  that  there  may  be  no  room  for  the  men  whom  I 
first  invited.  But  higher  motives  are  implied,  though  not 
expressed,  or  capable  of  expression,  in  the  parable.  The 
beauty  of  the  parable  is,  that  while  moving  in  a  lower  moral 
plane,  it  constantly  suggests  to  our  thoughts  a  higher  one  in 
which  the  motives  are  of  a  purely  benevolent  character.  The 
speaker  of  the  parable  lives  up  in  the  higher  region,  though 
for  the  sake  of  His  hearers  He  comes  down  in  the  parable  to 
the  lower.  It  is  due  to  the  unearthly  charity  that  dwells  in 
His  bosom  that  mention  is  made  of  vagrants  at  all  as  possible 
objects  of  hospitality.  Nothing  but  such  charity  was  capable 
of  the  audacity  necessary  to  the  bare  conception  of  such  a 
thought.  And  the  same  charity  which  could  conceive  the 
idea  is  revealed  in  the  injunction,  "compel  them  to  come  in." 
The  speaker  knows  full  well  that  the  difficulty  with  the 
parties  now  to  be  invited  will  be  to  get  them  to  believe  that 
such  a  felicity  can  possibly  be  meant  for  the  like  of  them,  ac- 
customed to  misery  and  tothe  neglect  of  their  more  favoured 
fellow-mortals.  Jesus  recognises  the  naturalness  and  the 
excusableness  of  scepticism  in  such  circumstances,  and  the 
need  of  compulsion  to  overcome  doubt.  He  can  enter  into 
their  minds  and  understand  just  how  they  feel.  "We  are 
hungry,  and  would  gladly  be  fed,  even  with  the  plainest  fare, 
how  much  more  be  partakers  of  so  grand  an  entertainment  I 


ch.  v.j  The  Great  Supper.  341 

But  such  bliss  cannot  be  in  store  for  such  wretches  as  we  are: 
you  trifle  with  us,  you  mock  our  misery."  Christ  knew  that 
such  thoughts  would  certainly  pass  through  the  minds  of 
persons  situated  as  described.  Yes,  He  knew  that  there 
would  always  be  many  so  situated  that  it  would  be  natural 
and  excusable  in  them  to  hear  with  incredulity  the  good 
news  which  He  brought  from  God  to  the  world  ;  men  accus- 
tomed to  misery  and  to  hard  treatment  from  their  fellows, 
or  so  profoundly  sensible  of  their  own  demerit  that  they 
could  hardly  believe  in  God's  love,  at  least  in  so  far  as  it 
concerned  themselves.  And  He  had  pity  on  such,  and  He 
would  have  all  possible  means  employed  to  overcome 
their  mistrust,  and  lead  them  from  incredulity  to  faith. 
"  Compel  them  to  come  in,"  is  the  word  He  gives  forth  with 
reference  to  such.  Indifference  He  will  not  compel,  but  will 
rather  treat  with  dignified  reserve.  But  the  incredulity  of 
men  who  would  gladly  avail  themselves  of  God's  grace  if  they 
durst,  He  will  compel.  What  hope  there  is  in  this  sympathy 
of  Christ  with  human  hopelessness!  And  alas,  what  need 
of  the  humane  compulsion  He  mercifully  enjoins  !  How  many 
now  live  even  in  Christian  lands  whose  hard  lot,  whose  experi- 
ence of  inhumanity  at  the  hands  of  fellow-mortals — some- 
times even  of  men  calling  themselves  Christians — is  such  as 
to  make  God's  love  almost  incredible !  How  many  are  in 
danger  of  being  driven  on  to  deeper  degrees  of  guilt  by  the 
thought  that  they  have  already  sinned  so  heinously  as  to  be 
beyond  the  reach  of  mercy !  Nay,  who  does  not  need  com- 
pulsions to  faith  ?  For  is  it  not  one  of  our  chief  hindrances 
to  hearty  faith  in  Divine  grace  that  God's  love,  as  declared 
in  the  gospel,  is  so  unlike  anything  we  see  in  this  world  as 
to  be  incredible  ?  Behold  what  manner  of  love  is  this,  that 
the  most  high  God  should  care  for  sinful  and  miserable  men  ; 
care  even  for  those  who  have  rebelled  against  Him  !  Behold 
what  manner  of  love  is  this,  that  God  should  give  His  Son, 
that  whosoever  believeth  on  Him  might  not  perish !  We 
need  help,  we  need  even  compulsion,  to  receive  this  truth,  and 
to  convert  the  wonder  of  incredulity  into  the  wonder  of  faith  ; 
and  Christ's  word  in  this  parable  assures  us  that  all  who  need 
such  compulsion,  have  in  Him  a  sympathetic  Friend  who  will 
not  fail  to  help  them  in  their  infirmities. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE    GOOD    SAMARITAN  | 
OR,    CHARITY  THE  TRUE   SANCTITY. 

The  connection  in  which  this  parable  was  spoken  is  so  dis- 
tinctly indicated  by  the  Evangelist  that  it  will  be  best  to 
quote  his  introductory  sentences  as  part  of  our  text: 

And,  behold,  a  certain  lawyer  stood  up  to  tempt  Him,  saying  :  Master  I 
what  shall  I  do  to  inherit  eternal  life  t  A  nd  He  said  unto  him,  What 
is  written  in  the  law  f l  how  readest  thou  f  And  he  answering  said : 
Thou  shall  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy 
soul,  and  with  all  thy  strength,  and  with  all  thy  mind  ;  '  and  thy  neigh' 
bour  as  thyself.  And  He  said  unto  him  :  Thou  hast  answered  right : 
this  do,  and  thou  shall  live.  But  he  wishing  to  justify  himself,  said 
unto  Jesus,  And  who  is  my  neighbour  t  And  Jesus  answering  said : 

A  certain  man  was  going  down  from  Jerusalem  to  Jericho,  and  fell  in 
with  robbers?  who  having  both  stripped  him  of  his  raiment,  and  in- 
flicted on  him  wounds,  went  away  leaving  him  half  dead.  Now  by 
chance  there  came  down  a  certain  priest  that  way  ;  and  when  he  saw 
him  lie  passed  by  on  the  other  side.  And  likewise  also  a  Levite 
arrived  at  the  place,  and  having  come  and  looked  at  him,  passed  by 
en  the  other  side.  But  a  certain  Samaritan,  on  a  journey,  came 
where  he  was,  and  seeing  {his  plight)  he  was  moved  with  pity,  and 
approacliing  him  he  bound  up  his  wounds,  pouring  on  them  oil  and 

1  Kuinoel  suggests  that  Christ  pointed  at  the  phylactery  on  which  the 
words  of  this  law  were  written,  as  He  spake.  Unger  quotes  this  opinion 
with  approval. 

*  There  are  variations  in  the  text  here,  but  of  no  importance  for  the 
Interpretation  of  the  parable. 

3  Field  prefers  this  to  the  rendering  in  A.  V.  and  R.  V.  on  the  ground 
that  the  verb  is  often  joined  with  a  noun  in  the  singular  number,  when  of 
course  '  among '  would  be  unsuitable  ;  iripuirtott  might  be  rendered  by  the 
ore  word  '  encountered.' 


CH.  vi.]  The  Good  Samaritan,  343 

wine,  and  mounting  him  on  his  own  beast  he  brought  him  to  an  inn, 
and  took  care  of  him.  And  on  the  morrow  [when  he  was  departing] 
he  took  out  two  denarii  and  gave  them  to  the  host,  and  said :  Take 
care  of  him,  and  whatsoever  thou  spendest  more,  I,  on  my  return,  will 
repay.  Which  now  of  these  three  seems  to  thee  to  have  become  neigiibour 
to  him  that  fell  among  the  robbers?  l  And  he  said,  He  that  shewed 
mercy  on  him.  Then  said  Jesus  unto  him,  Go,  do  thou  also  likewise.—' 
Luke  x.  25—37- 

In  the  interpretation  of  this  parable  great  regard  must  be 
had  to  the  original   question  of  the  lawyer.     Formally  an 
answer  to  the  question,  Who  is  my  neighbour?    evasively 
asked  by  one  who  was  not  thoroughly  in  earnest  about  the 
subject  of   his  professed  solicitude,  the  parable  is  really  an 
answer  to  the  wider    question,  What   is  the  supreme  duty, 
by  the  performance  of  which  a   man  may  hope  to  attain 
eternal  life  ?     The  moral  of  the  charming  story  is — Charity 
tlie  true  sanctity.     This  is  the  key  to  the  construction  of  the 
parable,  especially  to  the  selection  of  its  dramatis  persona— 
a  priest  and  a  Levite — persons  holy  by  profession  and  occupa- 
tion, and  a  Samaritan  stranger  of  a  different  race  from  that 
of  the  man  in  need  of  neighbourly  succour.     Through  the 
introduction  of  the  two  former  the  lesson  of  the  parable  is 
accentuated  by  suggesting  a  contrast  between  the  genuine 
holiness  of  love,  and  spurious  forms  of  holiness  ;  through  the 
introduction  of  the  latter,  as  doing  the  requisite  good  deed, 
the  supreme  value  of  love  in  God's  sight  is  emphasised.     It 
means :  Even  in  a  Samaritan   love   is  acceptable  to   God ; 
wherever  it  is  there  is  true  goodness,  and  therefore  eternal 
life;  like  faith,  love,  wherever  manifested,  breaks    down  all 
conventional   barriers  :  "  Every  one  that   loveth  is  born   of 
God,  and  knoweth  God."     Such  being  its  import,  our  parable 
is  emphatically  a  parable  of  grace,  revealing  to  us  the  nature 
ol  God  and  of  His  kingdom      Its  teaching  can  be  true  only 
if  God  be  love,  and  His  kingdom  a  kingdom  of  grace,  and 
the  Speaker,  not  typically,  as  in  the  Patristic  interpretation, 
but   literally,  the  Good    Samaritan  par  excellence — one,  that 
is,  to  whom  every  human  being  who  needs  help  is  a  neigh- 
bour ;  one  who  is  ever  ready  to  render,  to  those  who  require 
it,  seasonable  succour.     It  was  not  Christ's  intention,  perhaps, 

1  Hiov'tvat ;  suggesting  the  adage,  "  Neighbour  is  who  neighbour  does.* 


344  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Ckrui.    [book,  il 

under  the  guise  of  the  Samaritan  stranger,  to  describe  Himself ; 
the  less  we  introduce  the  spiritual  motive  into  the  parable 
itself  the  greater  our  sense  of  its  natural  beauty  and  pathos 
will  be.  But  the  present  parable  is  one  of  those  peculiar  to 
Luke,  in  which  the  vehicle  of  instruction  is  not  a  type  taken 
from  the  natural  sphere  to  teach  a  truth  in  the  spiritual,  but 
an  example  of  the  very  action  recommended.  In  connection 
with  such  a  parable  it  is  legitimate  exegesis  to  say  that  Jesus 
was  the  supreme  example  of  the  virtue  inculcated.1 

The  didactic  drift  of  the  parable  being  such  as  indicated, 
it  is  obvious  that  the  appearance  on  the  scene  of  the  three 
contrasted  figures  is  as  intentional  as  it  is  admirably  fitted 
to  serve  the  purpose  the  Speaker  has  in  view.  The  Priest, 
the  Levite,  and  the  Samaritan  do  not  enter  on  the  stage  by 
accident ;  they  are  carefully  and  skilfully  chosen  to  convey 
the  moral.  In  apparent  contradiction  with  this,  it  is  indeed 
said  that  by  chance'1  a  priest  went  down  that  way  ;  and 
perhaps  we  ought  to  extend  the  scope  of  the  phrase  to  the 
other  two  travellers  also,  as  if  Jesus  would  say :  By  a 
singular  fortuitous  concurrence  these  three  men  turned  up 
in  that  lonely  place  just  at  the  time  the  poor  wayfarer  came 
to  grief.  But  the  reference  to  the  chance  character  of  the 
meeting  only  makes  the  intention  of  the  Artist  in  the  selection 
of  his  dramatis  persona  more  marked.  It  is  a  virtual  apology 
for  the  unlikelihood  of  a  concurrence  which  the  purpose  of 
the  story  demands.  It  says  in  effect :  That  these  four  men 
should  come  together  in  such  a  place,  about  the  same  time, 
and  under  such  circumstances,  seems,  I  admit,  a  somewhat 
unlikely  supposition  ;  yet  suffer  me  to  make  it,  for  I  need 
it  in  order  to  point  duly  my  moral.3  The  apology  will  be 
accepted  by  all  who  are  satisfied  that  the  characters  who 
figure  in  the  parable  are  well  selected  for  the  didactic  purpose. 
On  this  point,  however,  doubts  have  been  expressed  by  some, 
as,  e.g.,  by  Keim,  who,  disbelieving  in  the  genuineness  of  the 

1  So  Goebel,  who  points  out  that  this  parable  is  the  first  of  those  in 
Luke  in  which  instruction  is  conveyed,  not  by  type,  but  by  example. 

2  Kard  ovyicvpiav. 

•  Godet  remarks  that  there  is  a  certain  irony  in  the  expression,  by  chance^ 
as  it  is  certainly  not  accidental  that  the  narrative  makts  the  two  charac- 
ters, priest  and  Levite,  appear  on  the  scene. 


ch.  vi.]  Tfo  Good  Samaritan,  345 

parable,  adduces  in  support  of  his  opinion  the  fact  that 
nowhere  else  do  we  find  Jesus  assuming  a  polemic  attitude 
towards  the  priests  and  Levites — the  usual  objects  of  His 
attacks  being  the  scribes.1  But  this  objection  has  but  little 
force,  if  the  classes  referred  to  laid  themselves  open  to  attack, 
after  the  manner  of  our  parable.  And  who  can  doubt  that 
they  did  ?  Who  does  not  know  that  men  holy  by  profession 
and  occupation  are  very  prone  to  come  short  in  the  duties 
of  humanity  ? — so  divorcing  holiness  from  charity,  religion 
from  morality.  Were  the  officially  holy  persons  in  Israel  in 
the  last  stage  of  her  degeneracy  likely  to  be  an  exception  ?* 
And  if  not,  were  their  shortcomings  likely  to  escape  animad- 
version on  Christ's  part,  due  opportunity  offering  itself  ? 
Far  from  doubting  the  genuineness  of  the  parable  on  this 
score,  and  resolving  it  into  a  mere  traditional  expansion  of 
a  simpler  utterance  of  our  Lord  in  conversation  with  some 
legal  interrogant,3  we  gladly  welcome  it  as  filling  up  what 
would  otherwise  have  been  a  blank  in  His  many-sided 
teaching.  It  was  too  much  needed  to  complete  the  picture 
of  the  time  not  to  have  been  spoken  by  Him  who  was  at 
once  the  most  faithful  and  the  wisest  of  all  the  prophets  ; 
and  it  is  too  good  to  have  been  spoken  or  invented  by  any 
one  else.4 

While  seeing  in  the  reference  to  chance  an  apology  for  a 
needed  combination,  we  must  be  careful  not  to  make  too 
much  of  it,  as  if  the  improbability  of  the  concurrence  were  so 
great  as  to  mar  the  natural  felicity  of  the  parable.  This  is  so 
far  from  being  the  case  that  the  Speaker  might  quite  well 
have  omitted  the  expression,  and  probably  would  have  done 
to  but  for  His  desire  to  fix  attention  on  the  characters  He 
introduced,  and  we  may  add,  His  exquisite  sense  of  the 
fitting  in  narration,  which  was  such  that  He  felt  inclined  to 
apologise  for  the  slightest  appearance  of  a  departure  from  the 

1  '  Jesu  von  Nazara,'  iii.  13,  note  2. 

•  Goebel  says  that  the  priest  and  the  Levite  are  introduced  because 
they  were  peculiarly  given  to  literalism. 

8  So  Keim  and  others  of  similar  proclivities. 

4  Keim's  doubts  are  only  a  part  of  his  general  scepticism  in  regard  to 
all  the  Samaritan  incidents  and  sections  in  the  Gospels,  and  especially  in 
Luke,  and  are  entitled  to  all  the  less  consideration  on  that  account. 


346         The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book.  ii. 

dictates  of  good  taste.  It  was  quite  within  the  limits  of 
natural  possibility  that  all  the  persons  alluded  to  should  make 
their  appearance  in  the  scene  of  the  deed  of  violence — the 
rugged,  rocky  pass  between  Jerusalem  and  Jericho,  arduous 
for  the  traveller  even  on  account  of  its  physical  characteristics, 
and  dangerous  as  the  haunt  of  desperadoes  who  lived  by 
plunder.1  Travellers  on  various  errands  must  have  frequented 
that  road,  for  there  had  been  no  robbers  had  there  been  no 
one  to  rob.  Among  these  travellers  priests  and  Levites  might 
occasionally  be  found  ;  for  Jericho  was  a  city  of  priests,  and 
officials  would  come  and  go  between  that  place  and  Jerusalem 
in  connection  with  their  service  at  the  temple.  The  pass  of 
Adummim  was  not  indeed  the  only  way  from  the  City  of 
Palms  to  the  capital,  but  it  was  the  most  direct,  and  would 
therefore  be  at  least  occasionally  taken  in  spite  of  its  bad 
renown  as  the  "Way  of  Blood."  A  Samaritan  stranger 
might  also  now  and  then  appear  there,  journeying  to  or  from 
Jerusalem  on  his  private  business ;  for  his  errands  might 
require  him  to  choose  the  route  which  lay  through  Jericho. 

In  truth,  whether  we  have  regard  to  the  construction  of  the 
story,  or  to  its  moral  aim,  we  must  acknowledge  that  in  the 
parable  before  us  the  artistic  tact  of  the  Speaker  appears  in  a 
conspicuous  degree.  The  place,  the  persons,  and  the  moral, 
all  fit  into  each  other  admirably.  A  situation  is  chosen  in 
which  the  occurrence  of  a  calamity  demanding  active  benevo- 
lence is  probable.  A  wounded  man  in  the  Bloody  Way,  how 
likely  a  phenomenon  !  There,  too,  the  men  from  whom  help 
in  such  an  emergency  might  naturally  be  expected,  but  from 
whom,  alas,  it  will  not  be  forthcoming,  may  also  be  met  with : 
priests  and  Levites  punctually  attending  to  their  religious 
duties  according  to  law  and  custom,  but  deaf  to  the  call  of 
charity.  In  that  same  grim,  perilous  pass  might  by  chance 
be  met  a  Samaritan,  hated  of  the  Jews,  and  most  probably 
hating  in  turn,  yet  not  necessarily,  conceivably  nearer  the 
kingdom  of  God  than  those  who  proudly  despised  him  as  a 
heretic  and  alien,  by  the  possession  of  a  heart  susceptible  of 

1  Vide  the  passages  in  Josephus  and  Jerome,  usually  referred  to  in  the 
Commentaries,  and  modern  books  of  travel,  such  as  Stanley's  '  Sinai  and 
Palestine.'  Stanley's  note  on  the  pass  of  Adummim  at  p.  424  is  worth 
consulting. 


CH.  vi.]  The  Good  Samaritan.  347 

the  gentle  emotion  of  pity,  and  prompt  to  act  on  its  benignant 
impulses ;  not  staying  to  inquire  who  or  what  the  object  of 
pity  may  be,  content  to  know  that  he  is  a  human  being — "  a 
certain  man1'1  in  distress.  Finally,  in  the  situation  chosen 
love  will  have  an  opportunity  of  showing  its  true  nature  as  an 
heroic  passioij.  For  the  love  that  shall  prove  itself  equal  to 
the  occasion  must  possess  very  uncommon  attributes.  It 
must  be  stronger  than  fear  and  the  instinct  of  self-preservation 
which  so  often  harden  the  heart.  It  must  be  superior  to  the 
prejudice  which  chills  pity  by  the  thought  that  the  claimant 
is  one  of  another  race  and  religion.  It  must  be  generous  and 
uncalculating,  grudging  no  expenditure  of  time,  pains,  or 
money,  which  may  be  necessary  for  the  effectual  succour  of 
distress.  In  a  word,  it  must  be  a  love  like  that  of  God — self- 
sacrificing,  ready  to  die  for  its  object,  even  though  that  object 
should  be  an  enemy  ;  a  love  in  which  is  revealed  the  maximum 
of  gracious  possibility,  and  which  finds  its  secret  reward  in  the 
blessedness  of  its  own  deed. 

In  details,  not  less  than  in  general  structure,  the  delineations 
of  the  parable  are  faithful  to  reality.  The  plight  of  the 
wounded  man  is  desperate,  as  the  didactic  purpose  requires  ; 
yet  the  description  thereof  cannot  at  any  point  be  charged 
with  exaggeration.  It  is  just  thus  that  the  victims  of  bandits 
in  those  regions  would  be  treated  in  those  days,  as  it  is  just 
thus  they  are  treated  still.  To  be  robbed  of  his  purse, 
stripped  of  his  garments,  wounded,  and  heartlessly  abandoned 
to  his  fate,  is  the  lot  of  any  one  who  has  the  misfortune  to 
fall  into  such  hands.  The  first  of  these  particulars  is  omitted 
in  the  narrative,  a  circumstance  diversely  explained  by  the 
commentators ;  some  suggesting  poverty,  others  that  plunder 
is  taken  for  granted  as  a  matter  of  course.  The  latter  view  is 
the  more  probable,  whether  we  have  regard  to  the  verbal 
expression  at  this  part  of  the  story,  or  to  the  aim  of  the 
whole.  The  xai  before  ^5iWr«s  {also  having  stripped  him) 
seems  to  imply  some  previous  act  of  violence,  which  could 
only   have   been   the   forcible   appropriation   of   that   which 

1  "  He  was  a  human  being  (Mensch.),  that  is  all  he  says ;  not  a  word 
about  his  rank,  descent,  or  religion,"  quaintly  remarks  Amdt,  whose 
whole  treatment  of  the  parable  is  spirited,  graphic,  and  instructive,  withou* 
having  recourse  to  spiritualising. 


348  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  u. 

robbers  chiefly  seek — the  purse.  Then  the  supposition  that 
this  misfortune  also  befell  the  victim,  harmonises  best  with  the 
design  of  the  parable  to  signalise  the  supreme  worth  of 
humanity :  for  the  graver  the  case  the  greater  the  opportunity 
afforded  for  the  display  of  that  virtue.  But  why,  then,  is  this 
feature  not  introduced  ?  In  reply,  we  ask,  Is  it  quite  certain 
that  it  is  not  ?  It  is  not  indeed  expressly  mentioned  in  the 
description  of  the  victim's  condition  ;  but  is  it  not  indirectly 
alluded  to  in  the  picture  presented  of  the  humane  conduct  of 
his  benefactor  ?  Among  the  kind  services  of  the  Samaritan 
to  the  object  of  his  care,  payment  of  his  bill  at  the  inn  is 
carefully  specified.  That  implies  that  the  wounded  one  was 
unable  to  pay  his  own  way ;  for  the  services  rendered  by  love 
are  all  supposed  to  be  necessary,  the  virtue  inculcated  being 
not  quixotic,  uncalled-for  generosity,  but  readiness  to  succour 
real  and  urgent  need.  Then  it  may  further  be  regarded  as 
certain,  that  the  poverty  does  not  belong  to  the  man's  ordinary 
condition,  but  forms  a  part  of  the  calamity  which  has  lately 
overtaken  him  ;  for  it  belongs  to  the  felicity  of  the  parable 
that  all  the  particulars  specified  should  arise  out  of  the 
supposed  situation. 

The  behaviour  of  the  priest  and  Levite  is  very  simply  but 
suggestively  described.  They  came,  they  saw,  and  they 
passed  by.  Inhuman,  unnatural  conduct,  one  is  ready  to 
exclaim.  It  was  inhuman,  but  it  was  not  unnatural.  These 
men  did  exactly  what  all  the  world  is  inclined  to  do ;  what 
the  majority  are  doing  in  one  form  or  another  every  day — 
passing  by  need  without  giving  pity  time  to  rise  in  the 
bosom — what  every  one  will  certainly  do  in  whom  the  im- 
pulses of  fear  and  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  are  stronger 
than  the  nobler  instincts  and  impulses  of  benevolence.  The 
language  of  the  parable  betrays  a  consciousness  on  the  part 
of  the  Speaker  that  the  conduct  he  describes  is  not  exceptional 
but  usual.  Very  noticeable  is  the  repetition  of  the  expressive 
word  avTtjiapfjKdev.  The  very  monotony  suggests  the  idea 
of  what  is  customary — the  way  of  the  world — and,  in  the 
present  case,  of  the  religious  world.  The  first  comer  passed 
by,  the  second  passed  by ;  and  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  that 
is  what  you  may  expect.1  It  is  the  exceptional  case  when, 
*  Grotius  interprets  avTixapijXQt  as  signiiying — passed  in  the  opposite 


ch.  vi  ]  The  Good  Samaritan,  349 

instead   of  hvTnraprjXee,  you   can   say  IwXayxvhOr]— not   he 
passed  by,  but  he  was  moved  with  pity.     So  it  is  with  the 
beggar  in  the  street ;  so  it  is  with  men  placed^  in  extreme 
danger  whom  you  cannot  help  without  serious  risk  to  your- 
self.    There  is  doubtless  everything  in  so  grave  a  plight  as 
that  of  the  wounded  man  in  the  pass  of  Adummim  to  rouse 
the  dormant  feelings  of  compassion  which  minor  afflictions  of 
everyday  occurrence  fail  to  touch.     Yet  let  us  not  imagine 
that  the  priest  and  the  Levite  would  necessarily  have  a  bad 
conscience,  or  go  away  feeling  that  they  were  behaving  in  an 
altogether  monstrous  manner.     Nothing  so  easy  as  to  invent 
excuses  for  their  conduct.     Every  commentator  suggests  a 
list  of  excuses,  each  one  inventing  his  own  list— so  plentiful 
are  they.     "  Another  of  these  robberies.     How  frequent  they 
are  growing!     One  ought  to  help,  but  what  can  one  do? 
This  poor  fellow  seems  beyond    help.     It  is  impossible  to 
attend  to  every  unfortunate.     Then  one  must  think  of  him- 
self.    True,  these  robbers  do  not  meddle  with  us ;  they  leave 
us  holy  men  to  go  and  come  in  the  performance  of  our  sacred 
duties ;    but  we   cannot  expect  them  to  act  with  such  for- 
bearance unless  we  observe  a  discreet  silence  as  to  their  law- 
less deeds."     "  Alas,  for  the  rarity  of  Christian  charity  under 
the  sun !  "—and  alas  for  the  multitude  of  plausible,  prudent 
reasons  by  which  that  rarity  can  be  accounted  for ! 

The  reasons  are  good  enough  for  all  who  want  an  excuse. 
But  if  one  happen  to  have  a  big,  tender  heart  he  will  not  be 
able  to  avail  himself  of  such  reasons  for  neglecting  a  duty 
lying  in  his  way.  When  the  emotion  of  pity  is  strong,  it  pre- 
vents a  man  from  acting  on  the  suggestions  of  prudence; 
when  it  is  very  strong,  amounting  to  a  passion,  it  prevents 
these  from  even  arising  in  the  mind.  Thanks  be  to  God, 
there  are  always  some  such  men  in  the  world.  Though  such 
charity  be  rare  it  is  not  unexampled;  therefore  the  good 
Samaritan  is  not  an  incredible  character.  His  picture  is  one 
of  unearthly  beauty,  yet  it  is  not  unreal  or  impossible.     We 

direction.  '  Praeterivit  contrario  itinere  ab  Jerichunte,  sciL  Hiersolyma 
properans.'  Godet,  with  his  usual  insight,  renders  it-'  In  face  of  such  a 
spectacle  they  passed.'  The  thing  emphasised  is  surely  not  the  direction 
in  which  they  were  going,  but  that  they  avoided  the  sufferer,  gave  him  • 
wide  berth,  and  lurried  on  from  the  place. 


350  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  il 

exclaim  as  we  read — "  He  did  as  he  ought  to  have  done  ;  as 
we  all  ought  to  do."  It  has  been  said  of  the  story  of  the 
good  Samaritan  that  it  has  been  "the  consolation  of  the 
wanderer  and  the  sufferer,  of  the  outcast  and  the  heretic,  in 
every  age  and  country."1  It  may  also  be  said  of  it  that  it 
has  been  as  a  conscience  in  the  heart  of  Christendom  con- 
demning inhumanity,  breeding  shame  of  cowardice  and  selfish- 
ness, and  prompting  to  deeds  of  kindness  by  a  heavenly  yet 
sober  and  practicable  ideal  of  benevolence.  This  ideal  is 
painted  with  a  few  strokes,  but  with  consummate  art,  which 
the  Limner  has  learnt  from  His  own  gracious  spirit.  The 
Samaritan  traveller,  like  the  two  others,  comes  up  to  the  half- 
dead  victim  of  violence,  and  sees  his  sorrowful  condition  ;  but, 
unlike  the  two  others  who  preceded  him,  he  does  not  pass 
by,  but  feels  pity.  They,  too,  perhaps  felt  a  little  pity,  but  it 
was  just  enough  to  scare  them  away  in  horror,  and  to  send 
them  on  their  journey  inventing  excuses  to  hide  from  them- 
selves their  own  heartlessness.  But  the  Samaritan's  pity  was 
a  passion  and  an  agony ;  therefore  he  could  not  get  away 
from  the  object  which  excited  it,  but  was  compelled  rather  to 
draw  near  to  him,  and  that  not  to  gaze  but  to  succour.  The 
sufferer  has  taken  full  possession  of  his  heart,  and  he  must  do 
for  him  all  that  he  needs.  And  he  does  all  promptly,  without 
hesitation,  or  intrusion  of  any  thought  or  feeling  that  can 
interrupt  the  flow  of  the  commanding  emotion.  The  several 
acts  are  carefully  enumerated,  not  for  mere  pictorial  effect, 
but  for  the  sake  of  moral  impression  ;  even  to  show  the  genius 
of  true  love,  as  that  which  renders  help  with  promptitude, 
thoroughness,  self-denial,  and  unwearying  patience ;  *  and  also 
with  tact,  doing  all  things  in  their  proper  order,  and  in  the 
best,  most  considerate  way :  first  staunching  the  wounds  with 
wine  and  oil,3  which  with  due  forethought  for  emergencies  it 
has  at  hand ;  then  conveying  the  patient  to  the  inn  where 
he  can  stay  till  he  recover ;  and  making  itself  answerable  for 

»  Stanley,  '  Sinai  and  Palestine,'  p.  425. 

»  Arndt  is  good  on  the  attributes  of  love  developed  in  the  conduct  of 
the  Samaritan. 

8  Schottgen  asks  how  came  the  Samaritan  to  have  wine  and  oil,  and 
thinks  it  was  usual  in  hot  countries  to  carry  oiL  Jacob  had  oil  to  anoint 
the  pillar,  and  Lot  had  wine  with  him. 


ch.  vi.1  The  Good  Samaritan,  35  * 

all  charges  Incurred  during  convalescence.  Noticeable  yet 
further  in  this  picture  is  the  absence  of  all  sentimentality, 
for  this,  too,  is  a  sure  mark  of  genuine  love.  All  things  are 
done  without  parade,  and  with  good  sense.  Specially  to  be 
remarked  in  this  connection  is  the  pecuniary  part  of  the 
transactions.  The  benefactor  does  not  give  to  the  host  a 
large  sum  of  money  amply  sufficient  to  pay  all  possible 
expense  with  a  liberal  margin  over.  He  gives  a  limited  sum, 
small,  but  sufficient  to  pay  past  outlay,  and  promises  to  pay 
the  rest  on  his  return.  There  is  thrift  without  niggardliness, 
as  you  expect  in  one  who  is  not  performing  a  solitary  act 
of  charity  in  an  ostentatious  way,  because  he  happens  to  be 
in  the  humour,  but  is  in  the  habit  of  doing  kind  actions  as 
he  has  opportunity,  and  therefore  does  them  in  sober,  business 
style.  It  may  indeed  appear  unbusiness-like  to  expect  the 
host  to  give  him  credit  for  future  expense  on  account  of  his 
beneficiary.  But,  doubtless,  the  host  knows  his  man :  he  has 
been  that  way  before,  and  he  will  come  again,  and  he  has 
always  been  a  good  customer.1 

Such  is  the  charming  tableau.  How  beautiful,  and  also 
how  suggestive  of  didactic  meanings!  In  the  first  place, 
it  completely  answers  the  immediate  question :  Who  is  my 
neighbour  ?  The  whole  doctrine  of  neighbourhood  is  virtually 
and  effectively  taught  in  the  parable.  First,  and  directly, 
what  it  is  to  be  a  neighbour,  viz.  to  render  effectual  succour 
when  and  where  it  is  needed,  having  regard  to  nothing  beyond 
the  fact  of  need.  Next,  indirectly,  but  by  obvious  conse- 
quence, Who  is  my  neighbour  ? — viz.  any  one  who  needs  help, 
and  whom  I  have  power  and  opportunity  to  help,  no  matter 
what  his  rank,  race,  or  religion  may  be.  Neighbourhood  is 
made  co-extensive  with  humanity.  Any  human  being  is  my 
neighbour  who  needs  aid,  and  to  whom  I  can  render  aid  ;  and 
I  am  neighbour  to  him  when  I  do  for  him  what  his  case 
demands.  It  matters  not  on  which  of  the  two  sides  the 
doctrine  is  approached.  The  relation  of  neighbourhood  is 
mutual ;  he  is  my  neighbour  to  whom  I  am  neighbour.  Jesus 
applied  the  parable  on  the  latter  side  of  the  doctrine,  as 
leading   up   most   directly  to  the    practical    appeal   to   the 

1  Possibly  the  inn  in  the  dangerous  pass  (of  which  ruins  arc  still  trace- 
able) was  kept  by  a  Samaritan.     So  Unger. 


352.  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  it 

conscience  of  His  interrogant — "  Go,  and  do  thou  likewise," 
1  Which  of  these  three,"  He  asked,  "  appears  to  thee  to  have 
become  neighbour  to  the  man  who  fell  among  the  robbers  ? " 
Had  the  Scribe  been  in  the  mood  in  which  he  began  the 
interview  he  might  have  parried  the  question,  and  laised 
another  quibble,  saying :  What  I  want  to  know  is,  not  to 
whom  I  am  neighbour,  but  who  is  neighbour  to  me  ?  In  so 
doing  he  would  have  acted  as  reasonably  as  when  he  first  put 
the  question  ;  for  he  asked  it  not  because  he  did  not  know,  but 
because  he  did  not  wish  to  act  on  his  knowledge.  But  the 
legal  quibbler  has  lost  all  his  briskness  and  courage.  The 
pathos  of  the  parable  has  subdued  and  solemnized  him,  and 
for  the  moment  called  into  play  those  feelings  of  nature 
which  even  in  a  Jewish  Rabbi  were  only  overlaid,  not  extin- 
guished, by  the  sophistries  of  conventional  morality.  There- 
fore, though  it  went  against  the  grain  to  praise  a  Samaritan, 
and  his  pride  refused  even  to  name  him,  he  could  not  help 
replying :  "  He  who  showed  mercy  on  Him." 1  And  when 
Jesus  bade  him  go  and  practise  the  virtue  his  conscience 
approved  he  had  no  heart  for  further  fencing,  but  went  away 
profoundly  impressed  with  the  wisdom  and  moral  authority 
of  Him  whom  he  had  tried  to  puzzle. 

The  parable  further  answered  the  larger  question  first 
propounded  by  the  lawyer  :  which  is  the  virtue  that  saves  ? 
The  Scriptures  teach  that  without  holiness  no  man  shall  see 
the  Lord,  that  is,  have  eternal  life ;  and  in  this  parable  two 
kinds  of  holiness  are  set  before  us,  the  one  spurious,  the 
other  genuine.  The  spurious  holiness  is  that  of  the  priest 
and  Levite,  or  sanctity  divorced  from  charity.  It  is  not 
indeed  formally  described ;  but  the  idea  is  suggested  by  the 
introduction  of  two  officially  holy  persons.  The  very  motive 
of  their  introduction  is  to  suggest  the  t.. ought  of  a  religion 
separated  from  morality,  and  especially  from  that  which  is 
the  soul  and  essence  of  all  morality,  love.  The  two  sacerdotal 
characters  appear  on  the  scene  as  concrete  embodiments  of 
a  type  of  piety  which  God  abhors,  sacrifice  without  mercy. 
By  placing  them  alongside  of  the  humane  Samaritan  Jesus 
eloquently  re-utters  the  prophetic  oracle,  "  I  will  have  mercy, 
and  not  sacrifice."     In   the   person   of  the   Samaritan   the 

»  Godet. 


ch.  vi.]  The  Good  Samaritan,  353 

nature  of  true  sanctity  is  exhibited.  We  are  taught  that  the 
way  to  please  God,  the  way  to  genuine  holiness,  is  the 
practice  of  charity.  It  has  been  remarked  indeed,  that  in 
applying  the  parable  Jesus  did  not  repeat  the  words,  "  This 
do,  and  thou  shalt  live?  and  that  He  could  not  do  so,  because 
charity,  though  necessary,  is  not  sufficient  for  salvation,  faith 
being  indispensable.  But  it  is  evident  that  if  life  could  be 
promised  to  him  who  kept  the  commandments,  it  could  also 
be  promised  to  one  who  acted  as  the  Samaritan,  for  what 
was  such  action  but  a  most  emphatic  keeping  of  the  com- 
mandments ?  In  that  action,  it  is  true,  only  the  second  of 
the  two  great  commandments  is  expressly  involved,  but 
neither  of  these  commandments  can  be  kept  apart  from  the 
other.  He  that  truly  loveth  God  loveth  his  brother  also; 
and  conversely  he  that  truly  loveth  his  brother  loveth  God 
also,  unconsciously  if  not  consciously. 

The  claims  of  faith  as  a  condition  of  salvation  were  fully 

acknowledged  by  our  Lord  in  His  teaching,  and  we  must  take 

care  that  they  suffer  no  neglect  at  our  hands.     But  there  is 

a  better  way  of  protecting  these  claims  than  to  be  jealous 

of  the  life-giving  power  of  love.     That  better  way  is  to  teach 

that  charity  presupposes  faith ;  in  other  words,  that  the  man 

whose  religion   consists   in   loving  God    and  his  neighbour, 

is  inevitably  a  man  who  believes  in  a  God  whose  nature  is 

love.     And  this  leads  us  to  remark  that  our  parable  likewise 

answers  the  question  which  lies  behind  the  first  question  of 

the  lawyer,  viz.  What  is  God  ?     The  parable  virtually,  though 

not   formally,   solves   that   problem  ;    implying,  though    not 

saying,  God  is  love  ;  His  kingdom  is  a  kingdom  of  grace ; 

the  way  to  please  Him  is  to  walk  in  love  ;  I,  Jesus,  am  His 

well-beloved  Son,  because  I  delight  in  saving  the   lost  and 

succouring  the  miserable.    What  the  parable  expressly  teaches 

is  true  only  because  these  things  are  true.     To  ascribe  this 

extended  significance  to  the  parable  is  not,  as  already  hinted, 

to  indulge  in  a  licentious,  tropical  exegesis  ;  it  is  merely  to 

extend   its   didactic   import   within   the   same   sphere.     For 

the  spiritualising  interpretation  of  the  fathers,  followed  by 

some  modems,   we   have  no  taste.     It   seems  to  us  frigid, 

trifling,  even  pernicious,  as  tending  to  blunt  our  perception 

of  the  true,   natural  sense.      When   carried   far   enough   it 

A  A 


354-         The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  u. 

becomes  ridiculous ;  and  hence  the  illogical  moderation  and 
discretion  exercised  by  some  patrons  of  this  style  of  exegesis, 
as  by  a  leading  English  writer  on  the  parables,  who,  having 
gone  so  far  with  the  fathers,  draws  the  line  at  the  two  pence, 
which,  in  the  tropical  interpretation,  denote  the  two  sacra- 
ments ! x     But  we   have   no   hesitation   in   saying  that   this 
parable  is  a  most  important  contribution  to  Christ's  general 
doctrine  of  God,  and  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  in  that  view 
pre-eminently  a  parable  of  grace.     It  is  implied  that  God  is 
a  God  of  love,  and  that  His  love  is  catholic,  not  partial ;  a 
love  of  mankind,  not  of  Jews  only,  a  (friXavdpunrCa,  as  it  is 
termed  by  an  apostle  ; 2  a  love  kindred  in  nature  to  that  pity 
which  moves  one  human  being  to  help  another  in  need,  to 
which   also  the  name  philanthropy  is  applied  in  Scripture 
notably,  too,  in  the  case  of  the  kindness  shown  by  Maltese 
barbarians  to  Paul  and  his  shipwrecked  companions.8     How 
significant  this  juxtaposition  of  the  love  of  God  most  high 
with  the  humane  feelings  to  which  even  the  most  uncultured 
of  mankind  are  not  strangers  ! 

The  catholic  scope  of  our  parable  was  doubtless  one  of  its 
chief  attractions  in  the  eyes  of  Luke,  the  Pauline  evangelist. 
Invent  the  parable  he  certainly  did  not,  for  that  was  a  task 
above  his  genius ;  but  select  it  with  pleasure  he  certainly  did 
on  account  of  its  universalism.  It  pleased  him  that  it  was  a 
Samaritan  who  did  the  good  action ; 4  it  pleased  him  that 
love  in  man,  disregardful  of  conventional  barriers,  in  the 
parable  had  free  course  and  was  glorified,  as  implying  a 
similar  love  in  God,  wide  as  the  world,  and  bringing  healing 
without  stint  for  its  sin  and  misery.  And  the  Church  and 
the  whole  world  have  reason  to  be  thankful  that  in  such 
things  Luke  took  delight ;  for  to  that  fact  we  owe  the  pre- 
servation of  one  of  the  most  precious  morsels  of  our  Lord's 
incomparable  teaching. 

1  Trench,  who  says :  "  It  would  be  an  entering  into  curious  minutije, 
one  tending  to  bring  discredit  on  this  scheme  of  interpretation,  to  affirm 
decidedly  of  the  '  two  pence'  that  they  mean  either  the  two  Sacraments, 
or  the  two  Testaments,  or  the  Word  and  the  Sacraments,  or  unreservedly 
to  accede  to  any  one  of  the  ingenious  explanations  which  have  been  offered 
for  them  "  (pp.  325-6). 

•  Titus  iii.  4.  ■  Acts  xxviii.  a* 

•  Vidi  Renan,  '  Les  Evangiles,'  p.  267. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  UNJUST  STEWARD  | 
OR,   THE    REDEEMING    POWER    OF    CHARITY. 

And  He  said  also  unto  His  disciples  :  There  was  a  certain  ri:h  man  whs 
had  a  steward;  and  the  same  was  accused  unto  him  as^  wasting  his 
goods.     And  he  called  him,  and  said  unto  him,  How  is  it  that  I  hear 
this  of  thee  f  give  an  account  of  thy  stewardship  ;  for  thou  may  est  be 
no  longer  steward.     Then  the  steward  said  within  himself,  What  shall 
I  do,  for  my  lord  taketh  away  from  me  the  stewardship  f  1  cannot  dig, 
to  beg  I  am  ashamed.     I  am  resolved  what  to  do,  that  when  I  am  put 
out  of  the  stewardship,  they  may  receive  me  into  their  houses.     So  he 
called  every  one  of  his  lords  debtors,  and  said  unto  the  first,  How  much 
owest  thou  unto  my  lord?  And  he  said,  An  hundred  baths  of  oil. 
And  he  said  unto  him,  Take  thy  bill,1  and  sit  down  and  write  quickly 
fifty.     Then  to  another  he  said,  And  thou,  how  much  owest  thou  t 
And  he  said,  An  hundred  cors  of  wheat.  He  saith  to  him,  Take  thy  bill, 
and  write  fourscore.    And  the  lord  praised  the  unjust  steward,  because 
he  had  acted  wisely  for  himself;  for  the  children  of  this  world  are 
wiser  in  their  generation  than  the  children  of  light.     And  I  say  unto 
you  ;  Make  to  yourselves  friends  with  a  the  mammon  of  unright- 
eousness; that  when  ye  fail,  (or  it  fails3),  they  may  receive  you  into 
the  everlasting  tents. — LUKE  xvi.  1—9. 

The  introductory  formula  might  seem  to  imply  that  this 
parable  was  spoken  at  the  same  time  as  that  of  the  Prodigal 
Son  contained  in  the  preceding  chapter.  In  reality,  however, 
it  does  not  necessarily  imply,  and  ought  not  in  the  exposition 
to  be  assumed  to  imply,  anything  more  than  that  to  the  mind 

1  Ti  ypa/i/ia  in  T.  R. ;  ri  ypappara  according  to  approved  reading,  the 
bond  or  voucher  which  showed  the  amount  owed. 

*  ic  rov  Ma/iwva,  rendered  ambiguously  of  in.  A.  V. 

•  UXiirtirt  in  T.  R. ;  icXiTnj  in  some  copies,  and  adopted  by  most  critic* 
De  Wette  prefers  the  former. 

AA2 


356  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,   ("book.  11. 

of  the  Evangelist  the  two  parables  had  some  connection, 
some  word,  or  thought-affinity,  which  made  the  one  suggest  the 
other,  and  led  him  to  introduce  both  in  the  same  part  of  his 
narrative.  What  the  subjective  connection  was  we  can  only 
conjecture  ;  it  might  be  very  slight,  for  often  a  very  insignificant 
point  of  contact  suffices  to  bring  the  law  of  association  into 
play.  The  link  might  be  the  simple  circumstance  that  both 
parables  refer  to  worldly  goods,  and  especially  to  the  way  in 
which  these  are  often  abused  by  men.  In  each  there  is  a 
prodigal  who  wastes  substance,  in  the  one  case  his  own,  in  the 
other  that  of  another  man  ;  and  the  act  of  wasting  is  described 
in  both  instances  by  the  same  term.1  It  is  quite  conceivable 
that  so  slender  and  external  a  tie  might  bind  together  the 
two  parables  in  the  Evangelist's  thought,  and  determine  him, 
in  absence  of  knowledge  of  the  historical  connection,  to  unite 
them  in  his  story.  It  is  probable,  however,  that  they  ap- 
peared to  his  view  bound  together  by  more  intimate  relations ; 
by  affinity  in  their  general  spirit  and  didactic  drift  not  less 
than  by  their  superficial  features.  At  the  least  it  may  safely 
be  assumed  that  he  cannot  have  been  conscious  of  any 
incongruity  between  the  parables  in  these  respects.  He  must 
have  discerned  even  in  this  most  unevangelic-looking  parable 
of  the  Unjust  Steward  a  vein  of  evangelic  sentiment,  which 
made  it  not  unfit  to  stand  beside  that  parable  of  the  Prodigal 
Son  in  which  the  gracious  aspect  of  Christ's  teaching  is  seen 
at  its  brightest.  If  so,  then  we  too  must  try  to  pierce  beneath 
the  repulsive  surface  to  the  underlying  stratum  of  Gospel  truth. 
And  we  mean  to  make  the  attempt,  and  that  in  a  spirit  of 
good  hope,  not  of  despair.  For  we  believe  that  in  the  whole 
of  the  section  wherein,  according  to  Renan,  is  to  be  found  the 
great  originality  of  Luke  2 — the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  chap- 
ters— the  evangelic  tone  prevails.  To  this  extent  at  least  we 
are  prepared  to  go  in  opposition  to  another  critic,  who  boldly 
affirms  that  the  two  chapters  have  absolutely  nothing  in 
common.3  For  we  cannot  regard  Luke,  with  some,  as  a  mere 
mechanical  chronicler  who  placed  side  by  side  in  his  history 
materials  of  the  most  heterogeneous  character  drawn  from  his 

1  tttiTKopiriatv,  Luke  xv.  13  ;  HiaoKopirifav,  Luke  xvi.  I. 

•  '  Les  Evangiles,'  p.  265. 

•  Reuss,  '  Histoire  Evang&ique,'  495. 


ch.  vii.]  The  Unjust  Steward.  357 

sources ;  in  one  chapter  a  section  radiant  with  the  light  oi 
divine  love,  in  another  a  piece  of  cold  Ebionitic  morality, 
ascetic  in  tone  and  commonplace  in  thought1  The  writer  had 
religious  sympathy  with  his  subject,  and  was  guided  through- 
out, both  in  the  selection  and  in  the  grouping  of  his  materials, 
by  a  warm  evangelic  feeling.  On  this  account  we  expect  to 
find  traces  of  that  feeling  and  of  that  which  justifies  it  even 
here,  as  also  in  the  succeeding  parable  of  the  Rich  Man  and 
Lazarus.  In  saying  so  we  readily  acknowledge  that  there  are 
difficulties  to  be  surmounted.  Among  these  we  do  not  reckon 
the  selection  of  an  unprincipled  agent  to  be  the  vehicle  of  in- 
struction.for  there  are  similar  instances  of  the  same  sort2  which 
show  that  our  Lord  in  His  parabolic  teaching  was  wont  to  use 
great  boldness  and  freedom  in  the  application  of  that  method 
of  instruction,  a  fact  which  only  gives  to  the  doctrine  taught 
enhanced  value  and  piquancy  in  the  esteem  of  all  intelll-gent 
students.  If  a  particular  character  was  best  fitted  in  other 
respects  to  convey  the  intended  lesson,  the  mere  lack  of 
morality  was  not  regarded  as  an  objection  to  its  introduction. 
The  main  difficulty  in  the  way  of  one  who  would  get  to  the 
evangelic  heart  of  the  parable  is  the  apparently  low  level  of 
the  very  moral  lesson  itself  which  the  parable  is  employed  to 
convey.  It  seems  to  be  a  lesson  of  mere  prudence  in  the  use 
of  money  with  a  view  to  the  salvation  of  our  souls  in  the  next 
world.  Such  a  low-toned,  unheroic  sentiment  strikes  one  as 
un-Christlike,  and  if  that  were  really  all  that  was  meant,  we 
should  feel  strongly  tempted  to  acquiesce  in  the  verdict  of 
Keim  that  such  a  gross  morality  of  prudence  never  came  from 
the  lips  of  Jesus,3  and  to  see  in  this  parable  a  foreign  element 
that  had  found  its  way  into  the  Gospel  from  extra-canonical 
sources  current  in  quarters  where  the  genuine  logia  of  Christ 
had  undergone  corruption,  or  been  mixed  up  with  apocryphal 
additions1  But  we  should  be  very  slow  indeed  to  adopt  any 
such  conclusion  and  we  do  not  think  the  facts  demand  it ; 

1  Pfbiderer  regards  this  parable  as  Ebionitic  in  spirit,  and  cites  it  as 
illustrating  the  evangelist's  impartiality  as  an  author  in  the  use  of  his 
sources,  of  which  he  finds  traces  in  Acts  also.  Vide  'Paulinhmus, 
p.  499. 

■  Vide  parables  of  Selfish  Neighbour  and  Unjust  Judge. 

•  '  Jesu  von  Nazara,'  ii.  401. 

•  So  Hilgenfeld,  Weizsacker.  Pfleiderer,  &c 


358  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  ci. 

that  is,  we  are  persuaded  that  in  this  section  of  the  evangelic 
narrative  we  are  taught  no  mere  morality  of  prudence,  though 
the  lesson  may  be  put  in  prudential  form,  but  something 
worthy  of  Him  whose  words  were  always  like  Himself — noble, 
generous,  unworldly. 

The  parable  seems  to  us  to  teach  not  one  lesson  but  two,  one 
general,  the  other  particular  ;  the  general  one  a  lesson  of  pru- 
dence in  the  use  of  temporal  possessions  with  a  view  to  eternal 
interests  ;  the  special  one  a  lesson  as  to  the  way  of  using 
these  possessions  which  most  directly  and  surely  tends  to  pro- 
mote our  eternal  interests,  viz.  by  the  practice  of  kindness 
towards  those  who  are  destitute  of  this  world's  goods.     A 
prudent  regard  to  the  higher  concerns  of  man,  and  beneficence 
towards  the  poor  as  a  means  to  that  end,  such  are  the  virtues 
which  it  seems  the  teacher's  aim  to  inculcate.    Many  commen- 
tators have  failed  to  recognise  the  intention  to  teach  a  double 
lesson,  and  have  virtually,  though  probably  in  many  instances 
unconsciously,  proceeded  on  the  assumption  that  the  interpreter 
had  to  make  his  choice  between  two  mutually  exclusive  alter- 
natives ;  the  result  being  a  multitude  of  interpretations  not 
altogether  erroneous,  but  partial  and  one-sided.1     One  class 
leans  to  the  side  of  prudence,  another  to  the  side  of  beneficence, 
the  fewest  have  clearly  perceived  that  the  two  points  of  view 
are  perfectly  compatible,  and  ought  to  be  combined  in  order  to 
do  justice  to  the  thought  and  purpose  of  the  Teacher.     As 
was  to  be  expected,  the  smaller  number  give  the  preference  to 
the  special  lesson  of  beneficence,  the  tendency  of  commentators, 
as  of  men  in  general,  being  to  side  with  the  common-place  in 
thought  rather  than  with  the  original,  with  the  mean  in  ethics 
rather  than  with  the  lofty.     To  the  honourable  band  who  in 
this  case  have  obeyed  the  nobler  instinct  belong  two  men  of 
princely  rank  among  interpreters,  Calvin  and  Olshausen.     The 
Genevan  divine  opens  his  comments  on  the  parable  with  this 
sentence :  "  The  sum  of  this  parable  is  that  we  should  deal 
humanely  and  benignantly  with  our  neighbours,  that  when  we 
come  to  the  tribunal  of  God  the  fruit  of  our  liberality  may 
return  to  us."    It  is  the  utterance  of  a  man  thoroughly  imbued 
with  the  evangelic  spirit  of  the  Reformation,  who,  while  zeal 
ous  for  faith  as  the  instrument  of  justification,  was  not  afraid 
1  linger  in  his  remarks  on  the  parable  adverts  to  this  fact. 


CH.  vii.]  The  Unjust  StewarcC.  3.39 

to  give  love  its  due ;  he  being  no  mere  scholastic  theologian, 
but  a  living  Christian  endowed  with  fresh  religious  intuitions, 
and  quick  to  discern  in  Scripture  whatever  was  in  sympathy 
with  the  doctrine  of  grace.  The  more  modern  interpreter  re- 
echoes the  sentiment  of  Calvin  when,  comparing  the  fifteenth 
and  sixteenth  chapters  of  Luke,  he  remarks,  that  what  in  the 
former  is  taught  concerning  the  compassionate  love  of  God,  is 
in  the  latter  exhibited  as  the  duty  of  man  in  his  surroundings. 
The  view  is  significant  in  his  case  also,  as  an  index  of  the  close 
connection  between  the  exegesis  of  Scripture  and  the  life  of 
the  Church.  For  Olshausen  also,  like  Calvin,  was  the  child  of 
a  new  time  in  which  the  evangelic  intuition  was  once  more 
restored,  and  Christian  thought,  delivered  from  the  stupefying 
influence  of  dogmatism  and  the  blinding  influence  of  religious 
legalism,  could  with  unveiled  face  and  open  eye  see  for  itself 
the  fulness  of  grace  which  was  in  Christ  Jesus. 

That  these  two  distinguished  interpreters  have  given  only 
a  partial  account  of  the  didactic  significance  of  our  parable 
may  perhaps  be  admitted.  But,  while  defective  in  detail,  their 
view  is  certainly  right  in  tendency.  If  the  duty  of  beneficence 
be  not  the  only  lesson  of  the  parable  it  is  certainly  the  chief 
lesson,  that  which  gives  to  the  parable  its  distinctive  character, 
and  must  dominate  the  interpretation  of  the  whole.  We  hope 
to  show  that  with  this  key  we  can  unlock  the  secret  of  the 
parabolic  narration,  and  explain  its  most  peculiar  features. 
Another  decided  recommendation  of  this  view  is  that  it  raises 
the  moral  tone  of  our  Lord's  teaching  clear  above  the  low 
level  of  a  vulgar  religious  utilitarianism.  For  with  the  practice 
of  beneficence  we  get  into  the  region  of  love,  and  there  we  get 
rid  of  self  and  prudential  calculation.  It  is  true,  doubtless, 
that  the  motive  to  beneficence  is  made  to  assume  the  form  of 
a  calculation.  The  owner  of  worldly  goods  is  advised  to 
make  friends  therewith  of  the  poor,  because  they  in  turn  may 
be  able  to  do  him  a  friendly  turn  in  the  world  beyond.  But 
this  will  not  perplex  any  one  who  remembers  that  the  para- 
bolic form  of  instruction  does  not  afford  scope  for  the  piay  of 
the  highest  class  of  motives.  It  is  essentially  popular  wisdom, 
and  it  is  the  way  of  that  which  aims  at  teaching  the  million  to 
make  action  spring  from  homely  motives.  The  prodigal  is 
moved  to   return   home  by  hunger ;  the  host  whose  guests 


360        The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  ij. 

refuse  to  come  to  his  feast  invites  the  beggars  to  take  their 
place  from  no  interest  in  them,  but  to  spite  the  first  invited, 
and  to  prevent  waste  of  the  food  prepared.  So  here,  Jesus, 
applying  His  parable  in  the  terms  naturally  suggested  by  it, 
bids  His  disciples  be  kind  to  the  poor,  to  make  sure  their  own 
admission  into  the  eternal  tents.  This  vulgar  morality  is 
meant  to  suggest  the  doctrines  of  a  heroic  morality.  The 
method  is  of  kin  with  the  employment  of  bad  characters  to 
teach  the  lessons  of  wisdom.  Both  belong  to  the  condescension 
involved  in  the  parabolic  form  of  instruction,  and  in  that 
respect  are  in  harmony  with  the  genius  of  a  revelation  of 
grace.  In  all  the  above  cases  it  is  assumed  as  an  axiom  that 
the  real  motives  are  higher  and  purer  than  the  ones  suggested. 
If  it  were  not  so  the  action  described  would  never  be  performed. 
Mere  hunger  would  never  bring  the  prodigal  home.  Mere 
anger  would  never  lead  any  host  to  entertain  the  abjects  of 
society.  As  little  will  mere  self-interest  lead  a  man  to  prac- 
tise beneficence.  Beneficence  is  not  the  product  of  the  pru- 
dence, but  the  prudence  is  rather  the  product  of  the  beneficence. 
A  benignant  spirit  impels  a  man  to  do  beneficent  actions,  and 
in  that  way,  without  being  aware  of  it,  or  reflecting  on  it,  he 
practises  prudence  with  regard  to  his  own  eternal  interest ; 
secures  for  himself  an  abundant  entrance  into  the  everlasting 
tents  after  death  ;  nay,  does  more  than  that,  even  brings  into 
his  soul  now  that  blessedness  which,  just  because  it  is  the  true 
life,  is  therefore  eternal. 

With  this  preliminary  glance  at  the  moral  import  of  the 
parable,  we  may  now  proceed  to  notice  its  more  salient 
features. 

First,  we  advert  to  the  peculiar  case  supposed.  It  is  that 
of  a  man  occupying  the  position  of  a  steward  or  factor  to  a 
person  of  wealth  and  rank  who  leaves  the  administration  of 
his  estate  wholly  in  his  servant's  hands,1  and  systematically 
abusing  his  trust  according  to  reports  which  reach  his  master's 
ears,  insomuch  that  his  summary  dismissal  has  become  inevit- 
able. One  naturally  wonders  that  so  objectionable  a  character 
should  be  selected  as  the  vehicle  of  instruction.  For  though 
we  may  not  insist  that  no  bad  men  shall  be  employed  to 

»  Un  grand  seigneur  vivant  dans  la  capitale,  loin  de  ses  terres  dont  U  a 
remU  l'administration  a  un  intendant. — Godet. 


ch.  vii.]  The  Unjust  Steward.  361 

teach  wisdom,  we  may  reasonably  lay  it  down  as  a  rule  that 
bad  men  should  not  be  used  if  they  can  be  dispensed  with ; 
that  is,  if  good  men  will  serve  the  purpose  equally  well,  or  even 
sufficiently  well.  Why,  then,  does  Jesus  oblige  His  scholars 
to  make  the  acquaintance  of  so  immoral  and  unedifying  a 
character,?  The  answer  is,  because  He  must  find  a  man  who 
is  placed  in  a  situation  analogous  to  that  which  the  moral 
lesson  has  in  view.  Now  the  situation  contemplated  by  the 
moral  lesson  is  that  of  men  who  look  forward  to  the  certain 
event  of  death,  and  who  are  exhorted  in  view  of  that  event 
to  make  due  preparation  for  what  comes  after.  Such  a 
situation  suggests  as  its  analogue  in  this  world's  affairs  the 
position  of  an  employe'  about  to  lose  his  place  and  be  deprived 
of  his  income.  A  factor  on  the  point  of  being  deprived  of 
his  stewardship  is  a  suitable  emblem  of  a  man  about  to  be 
removed  from  this  world  by  death.  That  being  so,  k  is 
obvious  that  an  unjust  steward  is  more  naturally  introduced 
into  the  parable  than  a  just  one,  for  the  simple  reason  that 
his  misbehaviour  is  the  natural  explanation  of  the  impending 
dismissal.  Why  should  a  faithful  steward  be  removed  from 
office  ?  To  conceive  such  a  case  were  to  sacrifice  probability 
to  a  moral  scruple. 

Clearly  then  we  must  overcome  our  distaste  for  this  un- 
savoury character  and  be  content  to  learn  wisdom  even  from 
him.  But  what  can  he  teach  us  ?  Well,  two  things  at  least 
One  that  dismissal,  death,  will  certainly  come ;  another,  that 
some  provision  must  be  made  for  what  is  beyond.  The  first 
lesson  we  are  taught  by  the  simple  fact  that  the  master  had 
resolved  to  put  away  his  unfaithful  servant,  which  is  carefully 
indicated  by  the  words,  give  an  account  of  thy  stewardship, 
for  thou  canst  be  no  longer  steward.  The  rendering  of  the 
account  is  not  demanded  as  a  means  of  enabling  the  employer 
to  decide  what  to  do.  He  has  decided  already  ;  he  is  so 
satisfied  that  his  agent  has  been  utterly  false  to  his  trust. 
He  expects  him  to  play  the  knave  even  in  this  last  act,  and 
he  calls  for  it  more  out  of  curiosity  than  with  any  hope  of 
satisfaction.  It  is  meet  that  the  steward  should  wind  up  his 
affairs  in  that  way,  and  therefore  his  master  will  have  it  so ; 
and  we  may  add,  the  Maker  of  the  parable  will  have  it  so, 
because  the  story  must  go  on,  and  the  steward  must  hav« 


362  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  it. 

his  opportunity  of  showing  how  he  provides  for  the  evil 
day. 

That  provision  has  to  be  made  against  that  day — the  day 
of  Dismissal — we  are  taught  by  the  vivid  picture  of  the  steward 
realising  the  fact.  He  said  within  himself:  "  What  am  I  to  do  ? 
My  lord  taketh  away  my  stewardship.  I  cannot  dig  ;  to  beg 
I  am  ashamed."  The  future  event  is  distinctly  laid  to  heart, 
and  the  question  what  next  deliberately,  anxiously  pondered, 
all  possible  courses  being  one  after  another  weighed.1  Thus 
would  the  Great  Teacher  have  His  hearers  lay  to  heart  their 
latter  end,  and  consider  solemnly  and  seriously  how  it  will  be 
with  them  thereafter.  The  steward's  soliloquy  is  not  recorded 
merely  for  graphic  effect,  though  it  serves  that  end  excellently, 
but  to  suggest  the  lesson,  "  go  and  do  likewise."  "  Thou,  too, 
must  be  dismissed,"  says  Jesus  to  those  who  have  ears  to  hear : 
"  Think  with  thyself  what  thou  canst  do  by  way  of  providing 
against  the  fateful  day."  The  meditations  of  the  disgraced 
steward  suggest  rather  gloomy  thoughts  as  to  the  limited 
capacity  of  men  to  provide  for  the  great  future.  "  I  cannot 
dig ;  to  beg  I  am  ashamed."  He  is  too  broken-down  by 
debauchery,  too  effeminate  in  spirit  to  engage  in  honest  toil, 
and  he  is  too  much  of  a  gentleman  to  stoop  to  the  trade  of  a 
beggar.  If  he  is  to  live  at  all  it  must  be  in  gentlemanly 
fashion :  by  cheating  possibly,  but  by  vulgar  labour  or  by 
abject  dependence  on  charity  never.  Is  man  so  helpless 
with  regard  to  eternity ;  unable  either  to  work  for  heaven  or 
to  beg  for  it ;  too  broken-down  by  sin  to  work  out  for  himself 
salvation  as  the  reward  of  righteousness ;  too  proud  to  be 
dependent  for  righteousness  on  another  ?  But  we  are  running 
unawares  into  the  vice  of  the  spiritualisers,  and  must  return 
to  our  parable. 

Thus  far  the  delineation  serves  the  purpose  of  enforcing  the 
lesson  of  prudence  in  providing  against  the  day  of  death. 
What  follows  is  to  be  understood  in  the  light  of  the  second, 
higher,  lesson  of  the  value  of  beneficence  as  a  means  towards 
that  end.  After  depicting  the  steward  engaged  in  rapt 
meditation  on  his  approaching  dismissal  and  the  measures 

1  The  mention  of  digging  is  natural  as  typical  of  agricultural  labour 
with  which  the  steward's  position  has  brought  him  mainly  inU  contact. 
So  Lightfoot, '  Hot.  Heb.' 


ch.  vil]  The  Unjust  Steward,  363 

for  ameliorating  the  evil  consequences,  Jesus  represents  him 
as  at  length  forming  his  resolution.  "  I  know  what  I  will 
do,"  he  exclaims  as  the  bright  idea  strikes  him.1  "  I  have  it  at 
last."  Then  follows  the  explanation  of  his  plan,  which  is  in 
effect  so  to  benefit  the  creditors  of  his  lord  in  his  account  to 
be  rendered  that  after  his  removal  from  office  they  will  gladly 
do  him  the  counter  favour  of  receiving  him  into  their  houses, 
not  as  a  beggar,  but  as  one  well  entitled  to  the  benefit,  and 
therefore  able  to  receive  it  without  humiliation.  The  scheme 
rests  on  the  simple  principle  that  one  good  turn  deserves 
another.  It  involves  knavery  as  towards  the  creditor,  but  it 
involves  beneficence  as  towards  his  debtors.  A  nd  that  is  tJie 
reason  why  the  steward  is  made  to  adopt  this  plan  of  helping 
himself ;  for  the  Speaker  of  the  parable  has  it  in  view  to 
teach  a  lesson  of  the  worth  of  beneficence  as  a  provision  against 
the  evil  day.  To  make  this  point  clear,  let  it  be  considered 
that  the  scheme  of  the  disgraced  factor  was  by  no  means 
the  only  possible  one  in  the  circumstances ;  he  might,  e.  g.% 
have  required  the  various  creditors  to  pay  him  the  full  sum 
specified  in  their  bills  while  altering  the  figures,  and  then 
have  gone  to  his  lord  and  paid  the  sums  due  according  to 
the  amended  accounts  and  pocketed  the  balance.  This  would 
have  made  provision  for  some  time  to  come,  if  not  for  all 
time,  and  it  would  have  made  him  more  independent.2  For 
after  all  there  was  something  humiliating  for  one  who  had 
occupied  his  high  position  to  be  the  guest  of  those  beneath 
him  in  station,  who  had  formerly  feared  him  as  their  real 
master ;  passing  from  farm  to  farm  as  he  tired  of  each  host 
in  turn,  and  probably  each  got  tired  of  him,  with  the  not 
impossible  result  of  finding  them  eventually  all  wearied  of 

1  tyvwv,  implying  not  habitual  knowledge,  but  a  conclusion  at  length 
arrived  at  as  the  result  of  consideration.  "  Not  =  tyvuica,  which  would  be, 
'  I  know,  as  part  of  my  stock  of  knowledge,  I  am  well  aware,' — but  imply- 
ing, '  I  have  just  arrived  at  the  knowledge,  an  idea  has  just  struck  me,  I 
have  a  plan.'" — Alford.  Lange  also  puts  the  matter  well ;  his  account  of  the 
steward's  soliloquy  altogether  is  good.  He  remarks  that  the  representation 
is  very  graphic  if  we  regard  the  word  as  spoken  exabrupto.  "What  shall 
I  do  .  .  .  ?  for  my  lord  is  going  to  deprive  me  of  my  office :  .  .  .  dig  I 
can't,  to  beg  I  am  ashamed  .  .  .  t&pijica.  I  know,  I  have  found  out  what 
I  must  do." 

*  The  values  due  to  the  master  were  large,  a  bath  being  equal  to  nearly 
ten  gallons,  and  the  cor  about  fourteen  bushels. 


364  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  C/irist.    [book  h. 

their  fastidious  and  moody  guest.  All  this  could  not  fail  to 
pass  through  his  mind,  and  to  appear  a  serious  drawback  to 
the  scheme,  and  to  recommend  some  other  course.  It  has 
indeed  been  suggested  that  the  bills  were  leases,  and  that  the 
change  of  the  figures  meant  a  change  in  the  amount  of  the 
annual  rental;  in  which  case  what  he  would  have  gained  by 
the  adoption  of  the  other  plan  would  have  borne  a  very  small 
proportion  to  the  amount  of  money  saved  to  the  tenants  by 
the  transaction  so  viewed,  that  amount  of  course  being  the 
measure  of  their  indebtedness  to  him.1  But  apart  from  the 
doubtfulness  of  the  suggestion,  it  is  open  to  the  objection  that 
if  such  was  the  nature  of  the  transaction  it  is  difficult  to  see 
why  this  great  man  need  condescend  to  live  under  the  roofs 
of  meaner  men  as  a  homeless  penniless  dependent.  Why 
not  commute  the  advantage  into  a  money  payment,  estimating 
the  reduction  of  rent  at  a  low  rate  which  the  tenants  would 
be  willing  to  pay,  and  which  yet  would  realise  over  the  whole 
a  considerable  sum,  and  having  completed  the  nefarious 
business  go  his  way,  bidding  good-bye  to  landlord  and  tenants 
alike  ?  Obviously  the  plan  actually  adopted,  however  we 
interpret  the  alteration  of  the  documents,  is  the  one  which 
suits  the  didactic  purpose  of  the  parable,  the  steward  being 
made  to  appear  a  benefactor  of  the  debtors  without  any 
pecuniary  benefit  to  himself,  because  the  aim  of  the  narrative 
is  to  teach  the  value  of  beneficence  as  a  passport  into  the 
eternal  habitations. 

As  helping  us  to  understand  more  fully  in  what  respect 
Jesus  would  have  His  hearers  regard  the  steward  as  exemplary, 
it  is  important  to  note  not  only  the  general  nature  of  his  plan, 
but  the  manner  in  which  it  is  executed.  In  this  connection 
the  actor  in  the  parable  exhibits  certain  valuable  qualities  of 
character  well  worthy  of  imitation,  decision,  self-collectedness, 
energy,  promptitude,  tact.  Having  once  resolved  what  to 
do,  he  prrceeds  without  hesitation  to  carry  out  his  scheme 
ui.disturbed  by  any  scruple  of  conscience  or  fear  of  failure. 
He  is  cool  enough  to  perceive  where  the  risks  of  miscarriage 
lie,  and  he  adopts  the  mode  of  procedure  best  fitted  to  obviate 
them.     He  calls  all  the  debtors  together  not  merely  to  save 

1  Bsiley,  'Exposition  of  the  Parables  of  our  Lord/  advocates  this 
view. 


ch.  vn.J  The   Unjust  Steward.  365 

time  and  trouble,  but  that  all  may  be  implicated  and  none 
may  mar  the  plot  by  becoming  informer.1  The  company 
assembled,  he  proceeds  to  business  with  a  briskness  and  spirit 
meant  to  be  imposing  and  calculated  to  insure  co-operation. 
With  the  documents  in  hand  he  asks  each  debtor  in  turn  the 
amount  of  his  obligation,  and  handing  him  his  bill,  in  a  tone 
of  authority  instructs  him  what  to  do :  Sit  down  and  write 
quickly  such  and  such  an  amount.  Nor  does  he  give  to  all 
the  same  instructions.  Herein  he  shows  his  tact  and  savoir 
/aire.  Diverse  reasons  have  been  suggested  for  the  variation 
in  the  remission.  One  suggests  his  knowledge  of  the  circum- 
stances of  each  debtor ; 2  another  his  idea  of  the  varying 
degrees  of  dishonesty  the  consciences  of  the  different  debtors 
could  stand  ; 8  a  third  his  desire  to  show  his  power  to  do  as 
he  pleased,  and  so  strengthen  the  feeling  of  obligation  to 
himself.*  According  to  a  fourth  interpreter  the  reductions 
were  in  accordance  with  the  facts  of  each  case.  This  sugges- 
tion is  based  on  the  assumption  that  fifty  and  eighty  were  the 
amounts  really  due  to  the  master,  and  that  the  higher  numbers 
indicated  a  fraudulent  over-estimate  of  the  indebtedness  by 
the  unscrupulous  agent.6  According  to  this  view  the  steward 
had  been  a  sinner  against  the  debtors  rather  than  against  his 
employer.  The  effect  of  the  transaction  described  in  the 
parable  on  this  hypothesis  was  to  make  the  debtors  under 
obligation  to  the  steward  by  what  they  supposed  to  be  a 
reduction  of  their  debt,  and  at  the  same  time  to  gain  credit 
for  him  with  his  master  by  a  correspondence  between  the 
bills  as  altered  and  the  amounts  previously  reported  verbally 
by  him.  This  explanation  has  little  to  recommend  it  except 
that  it  makes  the  praise  bestowed  by  the  lord  on  his  unfaithful 
servant  less  difficult  to  comprehend,  and  also  exhibits  the 
steward  as  in  a  way  repenting,  and  by  a  return  to  honesty 
fitting  himself  to  be  with  less  impropriety  the  vehicle  of 
moral  instruction. 

Probably  the  best  explanation  is  to  be  found  in  the  lordly 
temper  of  the  man.  He  adopts  the  arbitrary  line  as  the 
most  imposing.  It  is  not  the  power  of  his  position  as  the 
real  master  that  he  calculates  on,  but  rather  the  power  of 

1  So  Alford.  •  So  Alford.  '  So  Hofmann. 

*  So  GoebeL  «  So  Lange. 


366         The  Parabolic    Teaching  of  Chrut.    [book  u. 

an  imperious  bearing.  To  give  all  the  same  reduction  would 
be  to  act  under  law  to  a  method,  like  ordinary  men  ;  to  remit 
arbitrarily,  and  as  whimsical  impulse  dictates,  is  to  play  the 
part  of  a  magnifico,  which  suits  his  taste,  and  is  not  less 
likely  to  succeed.  The  world  is  largely  governed  by  show, 
and  many  admire  arbitrariness  as  princely,  more  than  equity, 
which  by  comparison  seems  vulgar.  The  steward  knew 
human  nature,  and  acted  accordingly. 

The  scheme  is  carried  out,  and  the  news  of  it  have  reached 
the  employer's  ears.  How  does  he  receive  the  report  ?  The 
lord  praised  his  unjust  steward.  This  alleged  praise  has 
scandalised  and  perplexed  commentators,  and  put  them  to 
shifts  to  explain  it,  or  rather  explain  it  away.  The  most 
plausible  method  of  doing  so  is  to  suggest  that  the  praise 
must  be  regarded  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  narrator.1 
Jesus  is  going  to  use  the  story  for  a  purpose  which  requires 
that  the  conduct  of  the  steward  should  be  in  some  respects 
praiseworthy ;  therefore  it  is  represented  as  being  actually 
praised  by  the  injured  employer,  though  in  reality  it  could 
hardly  have  been.  It  would  compromise  the  natural  prob- 
ability of  the  parable  were  we  to  have  recourse  to  this 
expedient  for  getting  rid  of  the  difficulty.  But  it  is  really  not 
necessary.  The  praise  is  after  all  not  so  unlikely  as  it  seems. 
At  first  sight,  no  doubt,  it  appears  as  if  an  outburst  of  anger 
at  this  new  act  of  villainy  had  been  much  more  appropriate. 
But  in  truth  the  stage  of  anger  is  past.  The  master  has  had 
his  bitter  hours  over  the  unfaithfulness  of  his  servant,  and 
these  have  issued  in  a  determination  to  be  rid  of  him.  That 
resolution  once  formed,  the  master  will  not  be  troubled  with 
any  further  vexation.  He  expects  doubtless  additional  evi- 
dence of  knavery  before  he  is  done  with  the  unprincipled 
man.  But  then  he  does  expect  it,  and  has  discounted  it 
already.  The  exposure,  when  it  comes,  will  awaken  no 
further  emotions  of  a  painful  kind.  Any  feeling  that  may 
be  called  forth  will  be  of  the  nature  of  amusement.  Hence- 
forth the  degraded  steward  will  be  a  kind  of  psychological 
study  to  him.  He  will  be  curious  to  know  just  what  the 
fellow  will  do  in  his  extremity.  And  if  the  knave  show 
talent,  dexterity,  he  will  be  quite  able  to  appreciate  it,  and 

1  So  Reuss. 


ch.  vii.]  The  Unjust  Steward.  367 

in  the  mood  even  to  bestow  on  it  a  sort  of  humorous  laud- 
ation. Of  course  the  praise  will  have  a  noticeable  peculiarity 
of  tone.  You  are  not  to  imagine  the  master  setting  himself 
seriously  to  pronounce  a  eulogy  on  his  ex-steward ;  that 
were  a  very  prosaic  supposition.  The  lord  looks,  says 
Calvin,  not  to  the  person  but  to  the  deed  itself.  There  i3 
humour  in  the  situation,  and  the  praise  must  be  understood 
cum  grano  salts.  The  now  completed  career  and  the  character 
of  the  dismissed  servant  lie  in  full  view  before  his  lord's  eye. 
The  picture  presents  a  strange  mixture  of  prodigality,  magni- 
ficence, cleverness,  and  unscrupulousness,  not  without  its 
fascination,  and  exciting  in  the  beholder  mixed  feelings  of 
abhorrence  and  admiration.  In  the  last  act  of  the  drama  the 
hero  displays  all  his  qualities,  bad  and  good.  How  natural 
that  the  exhibition  should  extort  from  the  spectator,  even 
though  he  be  one  who  has  suffered  injury  at  his  hand,  such 
expressions  of  approbation  as  men  are  wont  to  use  with 
reference  to  skill,  ability,  and  tact,  dissociated  from  principle. 
One  does  not  need  to  be  a  "  man  of  the  world  "  in  order  to 
utter  or  appreciate  such  laudatory  phrases ; 1  nothing  more 
is  required  than  the  power  to  enjoy  the  display  of  character. 

With  the  praise  bestowed  on  his  unrighteous  servant  the 
parable  ends ;  all  that  follows  is  application.  The  moral 
interpretation  begins  properly  at  the  ninth  verse  with  the 
solemn  formula — And  I  say  unto  you.  The  last  clause  of  the 
preceding  verse  may  be  regarded  as  a  parenthesis  explana- 
tory of  the  term  <ppovi[x(os,  employed  to  describe  the  action 
of  the  steward.  One  might  be  tempted  to  regard  it  as  a 
reflection  inserted  by  the  Evangelist,  similar  to  that  which 
occurs  in  the  discourse  of  Jesus,  recorded  in  the  seventh 
chapter  of  his  Gospel.8  It  has  somewhat  the  tone  of  those 
explanatory  enlargements  by  which  primitive  disciples  might 
naturally  unfold  for  the  edification  of  themselves  and  their 
brethren  the  latent  meaning  of  Christ's  pregnant  words ; 
whereof  we  have  a  sample  in  the  addition  of  the  words,  unto 
repentance,  in  the  saying,  V"  came  not  to  call  the  righteous,  but 
sinners.     For  the  reflection,  though  true  and  important,  is  not 

1  Alford  and  others  remark  that  the  master  is  a  man  of  the  world  also, 
to  account  for  the  praise  of  a  clever  but  unprincipled  person. 
•  Luke  vii,  29,  3<fc 


368         The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  u. 

absolutely  indispensable.  Without  it  we  could  understand 
what  it  was  that  the  lord  in  the  parable  praised,  and  how  it 
came  to  pass  that  there  was  that  in  his  servant  which  pro- 
voked his  approbation.  We  know  that  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  practical  skill  and  talent  leading  to  success  in  life,  apart 
from  principle  ;  and  we  know,  moreover,  that  very  often  most 
unprincipled  men  are  exceptionally  endowed  with  such  talent. 
Such  knowledge  is  a  part  of  the  ethical  lore  which  men  learn 
by  observation.  It  would  not  therefore  have  been  surprising 
if  Christ  had  left  the  truth  in  question  unexpressed,  to  be 
supplied  by  the  intelligence  of  His  hearers.  It  is,  however, 
on  the  other  hand,  by  no  means  incredible  that  our  Lord  did 
wind  up  the  parabolic  narrative  with  the  observation,  that 
"  the  children  of  this  world  are  wiser  in  their  generation  than 
the  children  of  light."  It  is,  as  Bengel  remarks,  a  sublime 
sentence  most  worthy  of  the  celestial  mouth  of  Jesus  Christ!1 
It  is  a  weighty  truth  expressed  in  choice  language.  The 
title  bestowed  on  those  who  are  not  of  this  world  is  especially 
noteworthy.  It  does  full  justice  to  their  superior  dignity 
Children  of  the  light!  How  much  better  at  the  worst  to 
belong  to  the  goodly  company  than  to  possess  in  the  highest 
degree  the  talent  which  conducts  to  worldly  success,  and  by 
the  use  thereof  to  gain  a  place  among  the  chief  men  of  the 
world !  Children  of  the  light,  having  spiritual  insight  into 
the  relative  worth  and  unworth  of  things,  and  therefore 
choosing  the  better  part  which  shall  not  be  taken  away! 
Children  of  the  light,  walking  in  the  sunshine  of  holiness,  and 
having  no  fellowship  with  the  works  of  darkness!  Yet 
taking  the  children  of  the  light  at  their  best,  how  inferior  they 
are  in  the  talent  for  getting  on  as  compared  with  the  world's 
children !  One  may  say,  the  more  they  are  children  of  the 
light,  the  less  of  that  talent  they  possess.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  is  the  talent  of  the  children  of  the  world.  The  world  is 
their  portion,  and  to  know  the  art  of  advancing  their  own 
interest  in  the  struggle  of  life  with  their  own  kind  is  their 
study,  and  their  frequent  attainment.  Thus  understood,  the 
apophthegm  conveys  no  censure  on  the  children  of  the  light 
for  not  being  more  like  the  children  of  the  world.  The 
purpose  is  not  to  blame  the  former  for  the  want  of  a  certain 
1  Sublimis  est  haec  sententia,  coelesti  ore  Iesu  Christi  dignissima. 


en.  vii. J  The  Unjust  Steward.  369 

quality,  but  to  advert  to  the  fact  of  the  latter  possessing  it  in 
a  signal   degree.     "  Praised    him  for   his  prudence ;    for   his 
prudence,  I  say,  for  a  prudent  and  skilful  prosecution  of  self- 
interest  is  a  notable  characteristic  of  the  men  of  the  world  ;  it 
is  the  thing  which  distinguishes  them  as  compared  with  the 
children  of  light."     If  blame  be  intended,  then  we  must  give 
the   saying   another   turn,   and    understand   it   thus :    "  The 
children  of  the  world   show  more  skill  in  the  prosecution 
of  their  worldly  interest  (els  ttjv  yevtav  rrjv  kavrtav — in  relation 
to  worldly  men  and  temporal  interests)  than  the  children  of 
light   exhibit   in   relation   to   their   eternal    interests."     The 
objection  to  this  view  is,  that  it  is  true  only  in  proportion 
as  men  are  not  children  of  the  light.     There  are  multitudes 
of  so-called  children  of  the  light  who  are  much  more  wise 
with  regard  to  temporal  than  to  eternal  interests.     But  are 
they  children  of  the  light  at  all  ?     Would  Jesus  have  called 
them  by  that  dignified  name  ?     Is  not  the  true  child  of  light 
one  who  is  wise  for  eternity,  and  a  fool  for  this  world  ?     And 
yet  there  are  degrees  of  light :    there  are  those  who  walk 
wholly  in  the  day  and  worthily  of  their  vocation,  seeking  in 
all  things  the  higher  goods  of  life,  and  measuring  the  value 
of  all  things  by  their  bearing  on  the  health  of  the  spirit. 
There  are  others  who  walk  in  the  moonlight,  seeing  dimly, 
groping  after  the  summum  bonum,  aspiring  to  eternal  life, 
candidates   for  initiation    rather  than   epopts,  and    not  well 
instructed   as  to  what  most  tends  to  promote  their  eternal 
interest.     We  must  suppose  that  Jesus   has   in  view   these 
specially.     The  advice  which  follows  is  such  as  suits  them. 
If  such  are  meant  then  we  may  see  in  the  application  to  them 
of  the  epithet,  '  children  of  the  light,'  an  evidence  at  once  of 
the  charity  and  of  the  wisdom  of  Jesus — of  His  charity  in 
conferring  a  title  hardly  deserved ;  of  His  wisdom  in  con- 
veying through  the  use  of  the  title  an  indirect  admonition. 
"  Children  of  light,  I  call  you :  such  is  your  ideal  position  ; 
make  it  a  practical  reality  by  acting  on  the  advice  I  proceed 
to  give  to  you." 

That  advice  is  obviously  expressed,  and  with  great  felicity, 
in  terms  suggested  by  the  parable.  The  summum  bonum  is 
conceived  of  eschatologically  as  a  state  of  felicity  entered 
upon  at  death  corresponding  to  the  provision  made  for  his 

B  B 


37°        T&e  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  ii4 

well-being  by   the   steward   after  his  dismissal  from  office. 
Death  is  referred  to  in  very  peculiar  terms :  that  when  ye  fail, 
or  when  it,  your  worldly  good,  fails  you — for  it  is  difficult  to 
decide  between  the  two  readings.     The  weight  of  diplomatic 
and  critical  authority  is  in  favour  of  e/cAnnj,  but  the  other 
reading  given  in  the  received  text  seems  to  sympathise  best 
with  the  parabolic  representation.     Both  forms  of  expression 
are  in  accordance  with  usage,  the  verb  being  employed  to 
denote  death  in  the  Septuagint,  as  in  Genesis  xxv.  8,  with 
reference  to  the  decease  of  Abraham,  and  the  corresponding 
adjective  being  applied  to  riches  in  this  same  Gospel.1     Our 
own  preference  is  decidedly  for  the  old  reading  as  the  more 
impressive  and  poetical,  as  also  more  in  keeping  with  the 
connection  of  thought.     That  when  ye  fail,  when  ye  suffer 
the  last  eclipse  and  bankruptcy  of  life — how  significant  and 
pathetic  the  allusion  ! — how  unmistakable,  too,  in  this  respect 
contrasting  with  the  other  form  of  expression,  which  does  not 
shut  us  up  to  death  as  the  only  possible  interpretation,  for 
riches  may  fail  before  death  overtakes  us. 

Still  more  striking  are  the  terms  in  which  the  future  state 
is  described.  The  abodes  of  the  blessed  are  called  the  eternal 
tents.  The  expression  is  paradoxical,  combining  two  ideas 
apparently  incompatible — the  idea  of  an  unchanging  home, 
with  the  idea  of  transitoriness  inseparable  from  tent  life.  A 
tent  is  the  lodging  of  a  pilgrim  and  stranger ;  heaven  is  the 
everlasting  dwelling-place,  the  perennial  house  and  home  of 
the  beatified.  But  in  this  very  combination  of  apparently 
incongruous  ideas  lies  the  poetry  and  power  of  this  remark- 
able phrase.  It  transfers  the  pathos  of  the  pilgrim  life  of 
time  into  the  life  of  eternity.  It  has  been  suggested  with 
much  probability  that  the  expression  is  taken  from  the  patri- 
archal history.  "The  tents  of  Abraham  and  Isaac  under 
the  oaks  of  Mamre  are  transported  by  the  thought  into  that 
life  to  come  which  is  represented  by  the  image  of  a  glorified 
Canaan.  What  is  the  future  for  poetry  but  the  past 
idealised ! "  2 

These  tents  have  among  their  occupants  men  whose  life 
on  earth  was  hard  and  sorrowful,  and  who  are  now  enjoying 
eternal  comfort,  even  the  Lazaruses  to  whom  this  world  wag 
Qncavpbv  avUXuirTov :  Luke  xii.  33.  *  Godet. 


ch.  vii.]  The  Unjust  Steward.  371 

a  veritable  vale  of  tears.  Of  these  Jesus  counsels  His  hearere 
who  possess  wealth  to  make  therewith  friends.  He  speaks 
as  one  who  is  confident  that  it  will  be  worth  while  to  follow 
this  course ;  that  it  will  prove  to  be  true  prudence.  "  /  say 
unto  you,  make  to  yourselves  friends  with  the  mammon  of 
unrighteousness.  Mark  my  words — I  assure  you  the  line 
of  action  I  recommend  will  turn  out  good  policy.  If  you  do 
those  who  want  what  ye  possess  a  good  turn  now,  they  will 
be  able  and  willing  to  do  you  a  good  turn  hereafter.  When 
ye  get  from  death  notice  to  quit  they  will  receive  you  into 
the  eternal  tents  where  they  dwell  in  peace  and  joy  with 
Abraham.  Your  beneficiaries  now,  they  will  become  here- 
after your  benefactors."  l 

The  form  of  the  thought  thus  quaintly  expressed  is  that 
naturally  arising  out  of  the  parable.  The  essential  truth  is, 
that  genuine  beneficence  has  value  with  God,  the  Judge  of 
all  the  earth.  The  statement  that  those  whom  we  benefit 
now  will  receive  us  into  heaven  means,  that  God  has  regard 
to  deeds  of  charity,  done  in  the  true  spirit  of  charity,  in 
determining  men's  eternal  destiny.  The  doctrine  taught  here 
is  therefore  substantially  identical  with  that  set  forth  in  the 
parabolic  representation  of  the  last  Judgment,  in  which  those 
who  are  welcomed  to  the  abodes  of  the  blessed  are  they  who 
have  done  acts  of  kindness  to  Christ  in  the  person  of  the  poor 
and  needy.  It  is  a  doctrine  with  which  we  Protestants  are 
not  quite  at  home,  and  which  we  are  apt  to  regard  with 
jealousy  as  endangering  the  supremacy  of  faith  as  the  grace 
that  saves.  That  we  should  wish  to  bring  all  Scripture  state- 
ments into  harmony  with  our  dogmatic  formulae  is  natural 
enough,  but  before  setting  ourselves  to  this  task  it  will  be 
well  to  impress  upon  our  minds  how  very  much  teaching  in 
the  same  line  as  that  of  this  parable  there  is  in  the  Scriptures. 
Going  back  to  the  Old  Testament  we  find  these  beautiful 
words  in  the  Book  of  Daniel :  "  Wherefore,  O  king,  let  my 
counsel  be  acceptable  unto  thee,  and  break  off  thy  sins  by 
righteousness,  and  thine  iniquities  by  showing  mercy  to  the 

x  Schottgen  states  that  the  Jews  believed  that  the  poor  could  receive  the 
rich  into  heaven.  Alford  quotes  a  genial  remark  of  Richard  Baxter's: 
"  Is  there  joy  in  heaven  at  thy  conversion,  and  shall  there  be  none  at  thy 
glorinca.ion?" 

B  B  2 


37^         The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  ii. 

poor,  if  it  may  be  a  lengthening  of  thy  tranquillity."     The 
recognition  of  the  principle  on  which  Daniel's  counsel  was 
based  in  the  New  Testament  is  very  pronounced.     To  the 
pious  Cornelius  it  is  declared  by  a  Divine  message :  "  Thy 
prayers  and  thine  alms  are  come  up  for  a  memorial  before 
God."     The  Apostle  Peter,  who  was  sent  to  teach  the  devout 
proselyte  the  Christian  faith,  in  his  Epistle  writes  :  "  Charity 
covereth  a  multitude  of  sins."     Paul  bids  Timothy  "  charge 
them  that  are  rich  in  this  world,  that  they  be   not   high- 
minded,   nor  trust    in   uncertain   riches,   buc   in    the    living 
God  ....  that  they  do  good,  that  they  be  rich  in  good 
works,  ready  to  distribute,  willing  to  communicate ;  laying  up 
in  store  for  themselves  a  good  foundation  against  the  time 
to  come,  that  they  may  lay  hold  on  eternal  lite."     Finally 
Christ  Himself  said  to  the  inquirer  afl  er  eternal  life :  "  If  thou 
wilt  be  perfect,  go  and  sell  that  thou  hast,  and  give  to  the 
poor,   and   thou   shalt  have   treasure   in   heaven."1     Luther 
reckoned  the  Epistle  of  James  a  strawy  production,  because 
it  appeared  to  him  to  contradict  Paul's  doctrine  of  justifica- 
tion alone ;  and  we  could  imagine  an  over-zealous  defender 
of  that  doctrine,  in  possession  of  a  courage  equal  to  Luther's, 
boldly  calling  in  question  the  authenticity  of  the  above-cited 
utterances,  and  pronouncing  them  one  and  all  apocryphal  in 
source  and  uncanonical  in  tendency.    The  Christian  of  soberer 
mind  will  incline  rather  to  make  room  for  the  doctrine  they 
teach  in  his  creed,  and  to  give  earnest  heed  to  it  in  his  con- 
duct, believing  that  so  doing  he  will   be  attending  to  matters 
which  make  for  salvation.     For  it  is  a  mistake  to  imagine 
that  the  teaching  of  these  texts,  and  of  the  counsel  appended 
to  our  parable,  is   Ebionitic,  making  poverty  a  virtue,  and 
charity  towards  the  poor,  in    the   purely  external  sense  of 
almsgiving,  a  passport  to  heaven.     The  mere  possession  of 
riches  is  not  represented  as  an  evil,  but  only  the  unwise  use 
of  them.2     And   the  wise  use  does  not  consist  in  making 

1  These  and  other  instances  are  enumerated  in  a  most  effective  manner 
by  M.  Oilier  of  Lille  in  his  excellent  book,  '  Meditations  Chretiennes  sur 
les  Paraboles,'  1880.  It  is  a  collection  of  sermons  full  of  insight  and 
eloquence. 

2  Godet  well  remarks,  that  the  sin  connected  with  mammon  consists 
not,  according  to  the  parable,  in  being  the  stewards  of  God,  but  in  forget- 
ting that  we  are. 


ch.  vii.  |  The   Unjust  Steward,  373 

money  in  unscrupulous  ways,  and  then  compounding  for  the 
iniquity  by  charitable  donations.  Our  Lord's  teaching  con- 
cerning money  may  have  been  abused  to  that  effect ;  but 
what  part  of  His  teaching  has  not  been  abused  ?  What  He 
aimed  at  was  to  raise  His  disciples  up  to  a  spiritual  view  of 
the  world,  as  not  an  end  in  itself,  but  only  a  means  to  an  end. 
To  those  who  had  been  slaves  of  the  world  He  preached  a 
higher  life,  that  consisted  not  in  the  abundance  of  the  things 
they  possessed.  But  He  did  not  merely  set  that  higher  life 
and  earthly  possessions  over  against  each  other.  He  taught 
that  the  lower  goods  could  be  used  so  as  to  increase  one's 
spiritual  wealth.  He  held  this  to  be  possible  in  every  case. 
There  was  no  man,  in  His  view,  however  degraded,  sordid, 
and  even  unrighteous  his  life  had  been,  who  could  not  redeem 
the  past  and  insure  the  future  by  a  wise,  beneficent  use  of  his 
means.  The  only  hopeless  character  was  that  of  the  selfish 
man,  who  continued  all  his  life  to  live  only  for  himself, 
having  no  solicitude  to  make  friends  with  the  mammon  of 
unrighteousness. 

This  phrase,  the  mammon  of  unrighteousness,  must  therefore 
not  be  timidly  interpreted.  Many  shades  of  meaning  have 
Deen  put  upon  it,  largely  with  a  view  to  avoid  exegetical 
encouragement  to  licentious  abuse  of  our  Lord's  words. 
Mammon,  we  are  told,  is  called  unrighteous  because  it  is  evil 
when  it  is  made  our  chief  good,  however  lawfully  gotten  ; x 
or  because  it  is  deceitful,  that  is,  of  uncertain  tenure ; 2  or 
because  there  is  no  money  which  has  not  at  some  time  01 
other  been  unrighteously  used,  although  possibly  not  by  the 
present  possessor  ;  3  or  because  money  represents  the  distinc- 
tion of  property — meum  and  tuum,  which  is  itself  the  fruit  of 
sin  ; 4  or  because  it  has  not  been  employed  for  charitable 
purposes,  neglect  of  this  duty  being  called  doi/aa,  as  the 
practice  of  it  was  called  biKatoavvq.6  Most  commentators 
shrink  from  that  which  might  appear  the  most  natural  inter- 
pretation: the  mammon  which  you  have  gotten  by  unright- 
eousness. They  tell  us  that  with  reference  to  such  a  case 
Christ  would   have   counselled,  not  charity,  but   restitution, 

1  So  Reuss.  •  Kuinoel  and  others. 

•  Jerome,  Melancthon,  &c.  4  Trench,  Alford,  &C. 

•  Lightfoot  ('Hor.  Heb.') ;  but  with  hesitation. 


374         The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  u. 

Nevertheless  we  hesitate  not  to  say  that  the  epithet  applied 
to  money  may  and  ought  to  be  understood  in  the  last  sense, 
not  to  the  exclusion  of  the  others,  but  with  very  emphatic 
inclusion  of  it  among  the  possible  meanings.  Its  importance 
consists  in  this,  that  it  exhibits  the  extreme  limit  of  un- 
righteousness, and  so  tests  the  value  of  the  principle.  Bene- 
ficence must  have  virtue  indeed  if  it  can  redeem  a  life  of 
unrighteousness  ;  if  even  in  the  case  of  men  who  have  gained 
wealth  by  fraud,  there  be  a  right  use  of  wealth  possible  by 
which  they  can  benefit  not  only  others,  but  themselves  in 
the  highest  sense.  Why  should  we  hesitate  to  say  that  Jesus 
did  contemplate  such  an  extreme  case  ?  Among  His  hearer? 
and  disciples  were  probably  not  a  few  publicans  ;  men  like 
Zacchaeus,  mentioned  a  little  further  on  in  this  Gospel.  What 
counsel  was  He  to  give  them  ?  To  restore  what  they  had 
gotten  by  false  and  unrighteous  means  ?  Certainly,  where 
possible.  But  what  was  to  be  done  in  the  many  instances 
in  which  it  was  impossible  ?  Surely  the  money  which  could 
not  be  restored  should  be  put  to  the  best  possible  use.  Let 
the  penitent  publican  do  all  the  good  to  others  he  could,  and 
so  redeem  the  bad  past  as  far  as  lay  in  his  power ;  putting 
the  poor  and  the  needy  in  the  place  of  those  whom  he  had 
wronged,  and  to  whom  he  could  no  longer  give  redress.1 

The  moral  sentences  which  follow  do  not  appear  to  us  to 
be  of  great  importance  for  the  interpretation  of  the  parable  ; 
but  they  are  of  some  use  as  giving  us  additional  insight 
into  Christ's  way  of  regarding  wealth.  He  virtually  applies 
to  money  a  series  of  epithets  all  tending  to  show  how 
insignificant  were  the  possessions  o?  time  in  His  view  in 
comparison  with  the  eternal  riches.  Wealth  is  the  little, 
the  unsubstantial,  that  which  is  really  not  ours,  because  we 
cannot  retain  it  in  the  day  of  death ;  eternal  life  being  the 

1  The  word  mammon  (properly  mamon)  in  the  Syriac  means  money. 
The  idea  that  it  was  the  name  of  a  god  was  of  mediaeval  origin.  There  is 
no  suggestion  in  the  text  that  mammon  is  essentially  evil,  though  the  con- 
cluding reflection  in  ver.  13,  "  Ye  cannot  serve  God  and  mammon,"  may 
seem  to  suggest  an  antagonism  between  a  good  and  an  evil  being.  But 
it  is  impossible  to  serve  two  masters,  whoever  they  be.  We  cannot  love 
both  God  and  earthly  friends  supremely,  any  more  than  God  and  earthly 
possessions.  It  would  be  better  to  replace  the  word  mammon  in  oul 
English  version  by  money  or  wealth. 


ch.  vil]  The  Unjust  Steward.  375 

great  boon,  the  true  riches,  that  which  is  our  own,  because 
it  abides  with  us  for  ever.  The  proper  use,  therefore,  of  the 
little  that  is  fleeting  is  to  use  it  with  a  view  to  the  attainment 
of  the  much  which  endures. 

One  word  more  will  finish  what  we  have  to  say  on  this 
remarkable  parable.  The  lesson  taught  here  suggests  an 
important  theological  inference.  If  kindness  to  the  pod 
have  such  value  in  the  sight  of  God,  it  must  be  because  God 
Himself  is  a  Being  who  delights  in  loving-kindness.  In 
teaching  a  morality  of  love  Jesus  virtually  teaches  a  theology 
of  grace.  The  two  go  together.  Therefore,  though  the 
parable  before  us  is  ethical  in  its  tendency  rather  than  doctrinal, 
it  may  be  legitimately  reckoned  among  the  parables  of  grace. 
The  graciousness  of  the  parable  comes  out  in  the  quality  of 
the  ethics  taught. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

DIVES  AND  LAZARUS,  AND  THE  UNMERCIFUL  SERVANT  | 
OR,     INHUMANITY    AND    IMPLACABILITY    THE    UNPARDONABLE    SINS. 

The  genius  of  an  ethical  system  is  revealed  not  only  by 
what  it  loves,  but  by  what  it  heartily  hates,  and  regards  as 
deadly  unpardonable  sin.  In  the  teaching  of  Christ  the 
unpardonable  sins  are  Inhumanity  and  Implacability.  It  is 
the  selfish  worldling  who  cares  for  nothing  but  his  own 
comfort  that  goes  to  the  place  of  woe ;  it  is  the  unforgiving 
man  whom  the  Father  in  heaven  does  not  forgive.  So  we  learn 
from  the  two  parables  next  to  be  considered,  the  last  in  the 
present  division.  The  doctrine  is  altogether  congenial  to  a 
gospel  of  love,  and  fitly  crowns  the  goodly  edifice  of  spiritual 
instruction  set  forth  in  the  parables  of  grace.  Where  love  is 
regarded  as  the  central  truth  of  God's  being,  and  the  supreme 
duty  and  virtue  of  man,  there  a  loveless  spirit  must  appear 
the  thing  above  all  things  hateful  and  damnable.  We  feel, 
therefore,  that  we  commit  no  offence  against  the  law  of 
congruity  in  including  the  parables  of  Dives  and  the  Un- 
merciful Servant  under  the  same  class  with  those  of  the  Lost 
Sheep,  the  Lost  Coin,  and  the  Lost  Son,  and  treating  them  as 
contributions  to  Christ's  doctrine  of  Grace.  Without  misgiving 
on  this  score  we  proceed  to  the  exposition  of  these  parables, 
taking  first  the  more  difficult,  viz. : 

The  Parable  of  Dives  and  Lazarus. 

Now  there  was  a  certain  rich x  man,  and  he  was  clothed  in  purple  and 
fine  linen,  and  fared  sumptuously  every  day.*    And  a  certain  beggar, 

1  Bleek  regards  nkovatoe  as  a  predicate,  and  renders:  There  was  a 
certain  man  who  was  rich. 

»  Dr.  Field  criticising  the  revised  version,  says :  "  The  Revisers  have 


ch   viii.]  Dives  and  Lazarus.  37 7 

Lazarus  by  name,  was  laid  at  his  gate1  covered  with  ulcers,  and 
desiring  to  be  fed  with  the  crumbs2  that  fell  from  the  rich  man's  tabu  : 
yea,  even  3  the  dogs  came  and  licked  his  sores.  And  it  came  to  pass  that 
the  beggar  died,  and  that  he  was  carried  by  the  angels  into  Abraham's 
bosom  :  and  the  rich  man  also  died  and  was  buried.  And  in  Hades, 
lifting  up  his  eyes,  being  in  torments,  he  seeth  Abraham  from  afar, 
and  Lazarus  in  his  bosom.  And  he  cried  and  said  :  Father  Abraham, 
have  mercy  on  me,  and  send  Lazarus  that  he  may  dip  the  tip  of  his 
finger  in  water,  and  cool  my  tongue;  for  I  am  in  anguish  in  this 
flame.  But  Abraham  said :  Son,  remetnber  that  thou  receivedst  thy 
good  things  in  thy  lifetime  and  Lazarus  in  like  manner  the  evil 
things  :*  but  now  here 6  he  is  comforted,  and  thou  art  in  anguish. 
And  besides  all  this,*  between  us  and  you  there  is  a  great  chasm1  fixed, 
that  they  which  would  pass  from  hence  to  you  may  not  be  able,6  ana 
that  none  may  cross  over  from  thence  to  us.  Then  he  said :  I  pray 
thee,  therefore,  father,  that  thou  wouldest  send  him  to  my  father's  house, 
for  I  have  five  brethren,  that  he  may  testify  unto  them,  lest  they  also 
come  into  this  place  of  torment.  But  Abraham  saith,  They  have 
Moses  and  the  prophets  :  let  them  hear  them.  And  he  said,  Nay, 
father  Abraham,  but  if  one  go  to  them  from  the  dead,  they  will  repent. 
But  he  said  unto  him,  If  they  hear  not  Moses  and  the  prophets,  neither 
will  they  be  persuaded  if  one  rise  from  the  dead. — LUKE  XVI.  19 — 31. 

done  right  in  retaining  the  A.  V.  except  that  for  '  faring '  they  might  with 
advantage  have  substituted  '  feasting.'  But  in  the  margin  they  propose 
another  rendering, '  living  in  mirth  and  splendour  every  day.'  Here  the 
luxurious  living  of  the  rich  man  is  presented  to  us  under  two  different 
aspects ;  mirth,  which  we  may  suppose  to  consist  in  eating  and  drinking ; 
and  splendour,  which  suggests  elegance  of  house  and  furniture.  But  the 
Greek  word  ti><pputv6ptvoe  only  contains  the  former  idea,  that  of  merry- 
making, which  is  qualified  by  the  adverb  Xapirpug,  laute,  sumptuously." — 
'Otium  Norvicense.' 
1  «/3i/3Xnr©  does  not  necessarily  mean  more  than  *  lay.* 

•  The  correct  reading  is  ruv  viittovtuv  =  the  things  falling.  tyxtuv  =» 
'crumbs,'  has  probably  crept  in  from  Matt.  xv.  27.  Godet,  however, 
thinks  it  has  dropped  out  by  confusion  of  the  two  ruv  and  ought  to  be 
retained. 

8  <i\Xd  tal,  implying  if  not  an  aggravation  of  his  sufferings,  a  heightened 
colouring  in  the  description  of  them. 

4  Ta  KaKa,  the  ills  of  life ;  not  his  evil  things,  as  in  the  case  of  Dives 
Goebel,  however,  maintains  that  the  pronoun  is  understood. 

■  Hi :  6lt  =  this  one,  Lazarus,  in  T.  R. 

•  This  rendering  answers  to  the  reading  ticl  icam  ro^roif.  The  reading 
approved  by  critics  is  ir  van  tovtok,  literally,  "  in  all  these  things." 

7  Xdopa.  Trench  remarks  that  when  the  A.  V.  was  published  the  word 
'  chasm '  did  not  exist  in  English.     The  R.  V.  retains  '  gulf.' 

8  The  word  8ir«c  at  the  beginning  of  this  clause  suggests  the  idea  that 
the  chasm  has  been  fixed  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  transit. 


378        The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ.     |_book  il 

In  the  interpretation  of  this  parable  much  depends  on  the 
view  taken  of  the  connection  between  it  and  the  preceding 
portion  of  the  chapter  in  which  it  occurs.  If  the  connection 
is  supposed  to  be  with  the  immediately  preceding  context, 
then  the  main  drift  of  the  parable  will  be  found  in  the  con- 
cluding verses,  in  which  the  importance  of  Moses  and  the 
prophets  as  means  of  grace  is  emphasised.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  these  miscellaneous  observations  contained  in  vers. 
14 — 18  be  passed  over  as  a  kind  of  parenthesis  interrupting 
the  train  of  thought,  and  the  present  parable  be  connected 
with  the  one  going  before,  then  we  shall  discover  the  didactic 
significance  not  in  the  appendix,  but  in  the  main  body  of 
the  story  viewed  as  a  fictitious  history  invented  to  illustrate 
the  moral  with  which  the  parable  of  the  unrighteous  steward 
ends.  We  have  no  hesitation  in  deciding  for  the  latter  view. 
The  imaginary  narrative  of  the  rich  man  and  Lazarus  is 
intended,  as  we  think,  to  enforce  the  counsel  to  make  friends 
with  the  mammon  of  unrighteousness  by  showing  the  dis- 
advantage of  not  having  such  friends  to  facilitate  admission 
into  the  eternal  tents.1  It  is  quite  likely  that  Christ  would 
illustrate  such  a  striking  counsel  by  some  such  startling  story  ; 
highly  probable  that  He  meant  to  do  so  irrespective  of  the 
words  which  He  was  led  to  speak  by  the  derision  of  the 
Pharisees  among  His  audience ;  so  that  we  may  see  in  the 
introduction  of  the  parable  the  resumption  of  the  discourse 
at  the  point  at  which  it  had  been  broken  off.2  So  far  from 
finding  the  key  to  the  interpretation  of  the  parable  in  the 
sentences  interpolated  between  it  and  the  preceding  one,  we 
should  rather  be  disposed  to  agree  with  those  who  think  that 
some  of  these  sentences  at  least,  especially  those  respecting 
the  perpetual  validity  of  the  law,  have  found  a  place  here 
because  of  the  turn  of  thought  at  the  close  of  the  parable. 
The  sentences  concerning  the  law  do  not  explain  the  story 

1  So  Olshausen.  He  says  that  the  connection  between  the  two  parables 
is  unmistakable.  As  in  the  one  an  example  is  given  how  earthly  goods 
may  be  used  for  the  service  of  God,  so  in  the  other  we  have  an  example 
of  one  who  uses  his  possessions  only  for  his  own  enjoyment.  In  Lazarus, 
on  the  other  hand,  appears  one  who  could  have  been  of  service  to  the 
rich  man  with  reference  to  heaven.  Here,  therefore,  again  is  beneficence, 
compassionate  love,  commended. 

*  So  in  effect  Gre  swell. 


ch.  viii.]  Dives  and  Lazarus,  379 

which  follows ;  that  story  rather  explains  the  presence  of 
these  sentences  in  the  foregoing  context.  They  come  in  at 
that  point,  because  the  story  with  its  peculiar  conclusion  was 
to  follow.  We  do  not  affirm  this  dogmatically  ;  we  simply 
throw  it  out  as  a  hypothesis  preferable  to  being  led  astray  in 
our  interpretation  by  the  assumption  of  a  rigid  adherence  to 
historical  sequence  on  the  part  of  the  narrator. 

In  none  of  the  parables  is  the  determination  of  the  central 
viewpoint  at  once  more  needful  and  more  difficult.  The  need 
arises  out  of  the  indefinite  possibilities  of  didactic  inference 
opened  up  by  the  scene  being  in  part  laid  in  the  invisible 
world,  concerning  which  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to 
draw  no  false  conclusions.  The  difficulty  springs  from  the 
fact  that  the  parable  itself  is  unusually  undidactic  in  form. 
In  this  case  the  moralist  retires  far  into  the  background,  and 
omy  the  artist  comes  to  the  front.  The  artistic  power  dis- 
played is  not  inferior  to  anything  in  the  whole  range  of  the 
parabolic  literature.  In  its  descriptive  vividness,  as  in  its 
delicacy  and  pathos,  the  touch  of  the  Limner  is  inimitable. 
But  the  Great  Master  does  not  in  express  terms  tell  us  this 
time  what  His  picture  means ;  we  are  left  to  draw  the  moral 
lesson  for  ourselves.  And  the  diversity  of  judgment  as  to 
the  doctrinal  tendency  of  the  parable  shows  that  this  is  by 
no  means  an  easy  task.  The  question,  What  does  this  story 
teach  ?  has  been  very  diversely  answered.  Some  have  found 
in  it  a  proclamation,  in  parabolic  form,  of  the  general  doctrine 
of  future  rewards  and  punishments  for  the  good  and  evil  deeds 
of  the  present  life,  with  sundry  items  of  information  concerning 
the  states  of  the  saved  and  the  lost  respectively,  the  most 
momentous  being  that  the  separation  between  the  two  classes 
is  absolute  and  final — the  dialogue  between  Abraham  and 
Dives  having  for  its  chief  aim  to  proclaim  this  fact.  And  it 
is  quite  conceivable  that  our  Lord  might  have  spoken  a 
parable  bearing  on  such  a  topic.  But  then  in  such  a  parable 
we  should  have  expected  to  find  the  characters  of  those  whose 
future  lots  were  to  be  so  different  more  clearly  indicated  than 
they  are  in  the  one  before  us,  in  which  Dives,  though  rich  and 
living  luxuriously,  is  not  represented  as  wicked,  and  Lazarus, 
though  poor  and  spending  a  wretched  existence,  is  not  repre- 
sented as  pious.     The  description  would  be  sufficient,  only  il 


380         The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  n 

the  doctrine  intended  were,  that  to  be  rich  is  a  crime  and  to 
be  poor  a  virtue.  And  such,  in  fact,  in  the  opinion  of  some, 
is  the  doctrinal  import  of  the  parable.  Its  burden  is,  Woe  *n 
the  rich !  blessed  are  the  poor.1  It  is  simply  a  vivid  concrete 
representation  of  what  is  taught  in  the  makarisms  and  woes 
with  which  Luke's  version  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
begins.2  Something  more  and  different,  it  is  admitted,  is 
contained  in  the  concluding  part,  which  is  regarded  as  a 
supplement  appended  at  a  later  date  to  the  original  parable, 
to  rectify  its  Ebionitism  by  making  Dives  be  damned,  not 
for  his  wealth,  but  for  his  neglect  of  Old  Testament  teaching,8 
or  by  giving  the  rich  man  the  character  of  a  Judaism  remain- 
ing unbelieving  in  spite  of  the  resurrection  of  Christ.*  Those 
to  whom  the  imputation  of  Ebionitic  tendencies  to  our  Lord 
is  offensive,  and  who  nevertheless  discover  in  this  part  of 
His  teaching  the  doctrine  of  future  recompenses,  find  them- 
selves constrained  to  purge  out  the  evil  taint  by  bringing 
out  of  the  description  of  the  two  contrasted  characters  more 
than  appears  on  the  surface.  The  chief  effort  is  directed  to 
Lazarus  with  the  view  of  transforming  him  from  a  merely 
poor  and  miserable  wight  into  a  saint.  This  is  done  by 
imputing  to  his  name  moral  significance.  In  the  first  place, 
importance  is  attached  to  the  fact  of  a  name  being  given  to 
him,  the  only  instance  of  the  kind  in  the  whole  range  of 
parabolic  utterances.  Then  stress  is  laid  on  the  composition 
of  the  name  :  it  being  equivalent  to  Eleazar,  which  means, 
God  my  help!*  Thus  the  name  used  descriptively  as  so  often 
among  the  Jews,  conveys  the  intimation  that  Lazarus  was 
a  man  who  put  his  trust  in  God,  and  bore  all  the  ills  of  life 
in  pious  patience  and  hope.  The  exegetical  process  is  most 
ingenious,  and  it  may  not  be  altogether  fanciful ;  only  it  is 
not  satisfactory  to  be  obliged  to  rest  our  interpretation  on 
what  at  the  best  is  only  a  conjecture.  For  that  the  poor 
man  who  lay  at  the  rich  man's  gate  is  named  is  accounted 
for  very  simply  by  the  consideration  that  a  name  for  him 

1  So  De  Wette,  who  denies  that  the  parable  is  the  counterpart  of  thd 
preceding  one. 

*  So  Weizsacker,  ■  Untersuchungen,'  p.  215,  and  the  Tubingen  school. 

•  So  Pfleiderer,  '  Paulinismus/  p.  449.     Also  Weizsacker,  p.  215. 
4  So  Hilgenfeld, '  Einleitung/  p.  566,  after  Zeller. 


ch.  vin.1  Dives  and  Lazarus.  381 

was  necessary  in  the  dialogue  between  Dives  and  Abraham.1 
And  as  for  the  significance  of  the  name,  even  granting  the 
correctness  of  the  derivation  vindicated,  it  may  be  descriptive 
of  state  rather  than  of  character :  Lazarus,  one  whom  God 
helps,  that  is,  who  has  no  other  helper :  a  forlorn  man- 
forsaken  mortal.2 

The  dogmatic  interpretation  of  the  parable,  as  one  setting 
forth  the  doctrine  of  recompense,  undergoes  modification  in 
the  hands  of  those  who  insist  on  a  close  connection  between 
the  parable  and  the  immediately  preceding  context.  The 
rich  man  now  becomes  the  representative  of  Pharisaism,  and 
the  parable  sets  forth  in  pictorial  style  the  judgment  of  God 
on  that  system.  On  this  view  Lazarus  ceases  to  be  an  inde- 
pendent character  exhibiting  the  bright  side  of  the  doctrine 
of  recompense,  and  subsides  into  a  mere  foil  to  the  principal 
figure.  In  the  worldly  state  of  Dives  is  represented  that 
which  is  high  among  men,3  and  from  the  reversal  of  his 
fortune  in  the  state  of  the  dead  we  learn  the  esteem  in  which 
the  same  is  held  of  God.  Lazarus  is  introduced  into  the 
scene  on  this  side  the  grave  to  make  the  grandeur  of  the 
world  all  the  more  imposing,  and  he  reappears  in  the  scene 
laid  in  Hades  to  give  the  damnation  of  pride  an  aspect  most 
deeply  tragic.  But  the  main  object  of  the  scene  in  the 
invisible  world  is  to  lead  up  to  the  sentiment  concerning 
Moses  and  the  prophets  put  into  the  mouth  of  Abraham.  In 
that  sentiment  is  contained  a  virtual  censure  of  Pharisaism  as 
a  system  whose  whole  tendency  was  to  weaken  the  authority 
of  the  very  law  in  which  it  placed  its  trust  and  boast ;  a 
tendency  specially  apparent  in  connection  with  the  precept 
against  adultery,  to  which  reference  is  made  in  the  eighteenth 
verse.  Thus  the  parable  is  the  judgment  at  once  of  Pharisaic 
pride  and  ostentatious  worldliness,  and  of  Pharisaic  laxity ; 
in  one  word,  the  judgment  of  Pharisaic  hypocrisy  under  its 
twofold  aspect  of  self-indulgence  veiled  by  petty  austerities, 
and  of  moral  license  disguised  by  a  scrupulous  regard  to 
legal  minutiae.  Christ  virtually  says  to  the  Pharisees :  "  Ye 
affect  an  austere  life,  but  ye  are  in  reality  luxurious  men : 

*  So  Hofmann. 

*  Another  derivation  of  the  word  is  "1$  tO  =  not-help. 

*  Ver.  I  J. 


382         The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ.      [book  ii. 

ye  are  very  jealous  in  appearance  for  the  honour  of  the  law, 
but  ye  do  your  best  to  make  the  law  void.  In  both  respects 
ye  are  an  abomination  in  the  sight  of  God,  and  your  damna- 
tion is  certain  and  just." 

This  interpretation  is  open  to  one  very  obvious  criticism, 
viz.  that  one  does  not  at  all  readily  recognise  in  the  descrip- 
tion of  Dives  the  picture  of  a  Pharisee.  As  you  read  you 
incline  rather  to  say:  Behold  a  Sadducee  delineated — by 
his  wealth,  his  splendid  style  of  living,  his  outer  robe  of 
purple-dyed  wool,  and  his  inner  tunic  of  fine  Egyptian 
linen,1  pointed  out  unmistakably  as  one  of  the  party  who 
believed  not  in  a  hereafter,  and  therefore  acted  on  the  maxim  : 
0  Let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to  morrow  we  die."2  Accordingly 
Schleiermacher  threw  out  the  conjecture  that  Dives  is  Herod 
Antipas,  taking  the  hint  from  the  allusion  to  adultery  in 
the  verse  immediately  preceding  the  commencement  of  our 
parable.  On  this  view  the  parable  still  remains  the  judgment 
of  the  Pharisees,  saying  to  them  in  effect:  "This  is  what 
comes  of  your  teaching  ;  it  sends  the  great  ones  of  the  earth 
to  hell ;  by  your  lax  interpretations  of  the  moral  law  ye 
destroy  the  chief  means  of  grace  for  such,  and  remove  the 
restraints  which  might  keep  them  from  perdition."  The 
reference  being  to  so  exalted  a  personage  it  was  convenient 
that  this  should  be  said  by  a  parabolic  representation  rather 
than  in  plain   terms.3     The   theory  is   ingenious.      Still   it 

1  So  are  the  words  "  purple  and  fine  linen  "  to  be  distributed,  the  one 
referring  to  the  upper,  and  the  other  to  the  under  garment.  To  these, 
but  in  reverse  order,  reference  is  made  in  Matt.  v.  40,  "  If  any  man  will 
take  away  thy  coat,  let  him  have  thy  cloke  also."  Mr.  Nicholson  blames 
the  authors  of  the  revised  New  Testament  for  retaining  this  ambiguous 
and  misleading  rendering.  He  says  :  "  The  word  rendered  '  coat '  means 
*  shirt,'  a  garment  lying  next  the  skin,  reaching  sometimes  to  the  knee, 
sometimes  to  the  ankle,  kept  close  to  the  body  by  a  girdle,  and  worn 
either  by  itself  or  with  an  outer  robe — the  'cloke.'  Of  these  two  the 
ordinary  dress  consisted,  and  were  a  man  deprived  of  both,  he  would  have 
nothing  left.  .  .  .  But  the  translation  of  the  Authorised  and  Revised 
Versions  suggests  that  he  would  have  at  least  a  shirt  left.—'  Our  new  New 
Testament,'  p.  39. 

2  Wetstein  says :  "  Sadducaeum  describi  ex  divitiis,  victu,  amicra  et 
petitione  patet ;  Pharisaii  enim  credebant  animos  esse  superstitts,  jejun  v 
bant  crebro,  modestius  vestiebantur,  et  pauperiores  erant." 

3  'tiber  die  Schriften  des  Lukas,'  p.  152. 


ch.  vin.]  Dives  and  Lazarus,  383 

confessedly  leaves  much  unexplained  ;  a  much  larger  propor- 
tion of  material  to  which  no  didactic  significance  is  assigned, 
Schleiermacher  acknowledges,  than  in  any  other  parable. 

In  view  of  the  unsatisfactoriness  of  all  these  dogmatic  con- 
structions, it  is  not  surprising  that  some  should  have  felt 
themselves  driven  in  despair  to  take  up  the  position  that  the 
parable  has  no  doctrinal  aim,  and  contains  no  definite  doctrinal 
teaching,  but  is  simply  intended  to  startle  men  into  serious 
thought  and  make  them  look  below  appearance  to  reality,  and 
keep  in  mind  the  eternal  future  amid  the  enjoyments  of  the 
present.1  It  thus  becomes  a  mere  memento  mori  addressed  to 
unbelieving  men  of  all  classes  who  do  not  live  under  the 
power  of  the  world  to  come,  but  are  Sadducees  in  heart  what- 
ever their  professed  creed.  Of  course,  when  the  didactic 
drift  is  reduced  to  this  vague  generality,  we  can  understand 
how  a  Sadducee  might  be  selected  to  convey  the  lesson,  even 
though  it  was  addressed  immediately  to  Pharisees.  Unbelief 
is  a  leaven  common  to  both  Pharisees  and  Sadducees,  and  any 
one  who  lives  a  worldly  life  will  serve  the  purpose  of  enforcing 
the  moral :  "  Be  wise  in  time."  Dives  is  merely  one  of  many 
possible  illustrations  of  an  important  but  much  neglected 
commonplace.* 

We  are  very  loth  to  come  to  the  conclusion  that  such  point- 
less generalities  are  all  that  we  can  extract  from  this  remark- 
able portion  of  our  Lord's  teaching.  As  we  remarked  in 
another  connection,  it  is  characteristic  of  His  parables,  as 
compared  with  those  of  the  Rabbis,  that  their  lessons  are  not 
moral  commonplaces,  but  specific  truths,  unfamiliar,  and  for 
the  most  part  unwelcome.  Of  course  moral  commonplaces 
are  implied — it  being,  as  we  have  more  than  once  remarked, 
part  of  the  felicity  of  the  parables  that  they  suggest  much 
more  than  they  expressly  teach.  The  parable  before  us  is  no 
exception.  It  implies  and  indirectly  conveys  many  important 
moral  lessons,  such  as  that  "  the  decision  of  the  next  world 
will  often  reverse  the  estimation  wherein  men  are  held  in  this ; 
that  God  is  no  respecter  of  persons  ;  that  the  heart  must 
make  its  choice  between  the  good  things  of  this  life,  and  those 

1  So  Dr.  Service  in  '  Salvation  here  and  hereafter ' ;  also  Reuss. 
•  This  is  substantially  the  line  of  thought  pursued  by  Trench.    Vide  bit 
remarks,  in  loc. 


38+         The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ.     £book.  il 

which  the  externals  of  this  life  do  not  affect."  l  It  presupposes 
and  recalls  to  mind  truths  more  general  still  and  not  less 
momentous,  such  as  that  there  is  a  future  life  after  death  in 
which  men  will  receive  the  appropriate  recompense  of  the 
deeds  done  in  the  life  that  now  is.  But  it  was  not  to  teach 
such  truths  generally  believed,  if  little  laid  to  heart,  that 
Christ  spake  in  parables,  but  to  express  doctrine  more  original, 
more  distinctively  Christian,  more  peculiar  to  the  kingdom  of 
God.  Thus  in  the  parabolic  representation  of  the  Judgment 
in  the  twenty-fifth  chapter  of  Matthew's  Gospel  the  specific 
lesson  is  not  that  there  will  be  such  a  Judgment,  but  the 
principle  on  which  the  Judgment  will  proceed,  viz.  the  great 
law  of  charity.  In  like  manner  we  come  to  the  interpretation 
of  the  parable  before  us  quite  expecting  to  find  that  its  dis- 
tinctive lesson  is  not  the  general  doctrine  of  retribution,  but 
some  specific  information  as  to  the  ground  of  condemnation 
in  harmony  with  Christ's  whole  teaching,  though  not  in  accord- 
ance with  current  opinion.  The  general  doctrine  of  retri- 
bution was  part  of  the  current  opinion  of  the  time,  formed 
indeed  a  prominent  item  in  the  Pharisaic  creed,  as  the  para- 
bolic form  of  the  present  discourse  implies  ;  for  a  parable  uses 
things  familiar  to  illustrate  things  unfamiliar.  But  that  the 
supreme  virtue  is  love,  and  that  the  damning  sin  is  selfish 
inhumanity,  formed  no  part  of  the  ethical  system  of  the  age, 
and  it  would  not  surprise  us  to  find  Christ  speaking  a  parable 
to  teach  these  truths. 

Just  such  we  take  to  be  the  didactic  significance  of  the 
imaginary  history  of  the  rich  man  and  Lazarus.  This  '  par- 
able,' for  so  we  may  continue  to  call  it,  though  in  strictness 
it  is  hardly  entitled  to  the  designation,  has  two  dogmatic 
momenta :  that  inhumanity  is  a  damning  sin,  and  that  it  is  a 
sin  without  excuse.  The  former  is  the  burden  of  the  first 
part  of  the  parable  (vers.  19 — 26) ;  the  latter  of  the  concluding 
portion  (vers.  27 — 31).  This  analysis.it  is  obvious,  does  not 
destroy  the  unity  of  the  parable,  because  the  second  doctrine 
is  clearly  allied  to  the  first,  and  forms  its  necessary  complement. 
A  sin  is  not  damning  unless  it  be  inexcusable ;  when  a  valid 
plea  in  extenuation  can  be  advanced  judicial  rigour  is  out  of 
place.  The  only  question  that  can  be  asked  is,  whether  we 
>  Farrar, 4  The  Life  of  Christ,*  voL  ii.  p.  128. 


ch.  vi  11. J  Dives  and  Lazarus.  385 

have  correctly  indicated  the  doctrinal  gist  of  the  story  in  both 
its  parts.  That  question  shall  be  answered  in  the  following 
exposition,  in  which  we  hope  to  make  it  appear  that  all  details 
can  be  naturally  accounted  for  by,  and  form  together  a  har- 
monious picture  around,  these  central  truths  which  we  place 
in  the  foreground. 

The  first  point  calling  for  notice  is  the  character  of  the  rich 
man.  Our  construction  of  the  parable  requires  that  Dives 
should  be,  by  clear  implication  if  not  by  express  statement, 
accused  of  inhumanity.  Is  the  fact  then  so  ?  Now  what  is 
expressly  stated  is,  that  Dives  lived  a  life  of  princely  splendour 
and  luxury,  attired  as  princes  are  attired,  and  faring  as 
princes  fare.  It  is  not  said  that  he  was  addicted  to  the  vices 
which  too  often  accompany  fulness  of  bread  and  abundance 
of  idleness.  It  is  not  even  alleged  in  so  many  words  that  he 
was  hard-hearted  towards  the  poor.  Had  that  been  charged, 
we  could  understand  the  absence  of  all  other  charges,  for  the 
effect  would  simply  be  to  accentuate  the  wickedness  of  an 
unsympathetic  spirit.  But  if  even  this  is  not  charged  what 
becomes  of  our  dogmatic  construction  ?  Before,  however,  we 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  Dives  is  not  represented  as  being 
the  opposite  of  benevolent,  we  must  make  sure  that  we  have 
taken  into  consideration  all  that  is  stated  concerning  him. 
Observe  what  follows :  "  There  was  a  certain  beggar  named 
Lazarus,  which  was  laid  at  his  gate."  This  is  a  fact  of  import- 
ance in  the  history  of  Dives.  Lazarus  enters  on  the  stage  not 
merely  to  present  a  striking  contrast  to  the  rich  man's  state, 
but  as  one  with  whom  the  latter  had  relations.  Lazarus  repre- 
sents opportunity  for  the  exercise  of  humanity.  That  is  the 
chief  if  not  the  sole  purpose  for  which  he  appears  in  the  first 
scene.  He  comes  before  us  a  picture  of  want  and  woe,  and 
says:  "I  was  laid  at  this  man's  gate.  He  knew  me;  he 
could  not  pass  from  his  house  into  the  street  without  seeing 
my  condition  ;  yet  as  a  leprous  beggar  I  have  lived,  and  as  a 
beggar  I  will  die."  And  Lazarus  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  a 
solitary  individual ;  he  is  one  of  a  class  who  abound  in  the 
world,  and  are  never  far  from  the  gates  even  of  palaces.  In 
no  place  in  the  world  can  the  rich  man  say  with  truth,  There 
are  no  poor  and  needy  near  me  whom  I  can  feed,  and  clothe, 
and  chersh,     To  those  who  plead  such  an  excuse  for  a  selfish 

CC 


386         The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  il 

life  it  may  ever  be  replied  :  Ye  have  tlte  poor  always  with  you. 
That  is  in  effect  what  Christ  meant  to  say  by  the  introduction 
of  Lazarus  in  the  first  part  of  the  story.  He  reminds  those 
whom  He  counsels  to  make  friends  with  the  mammon  of  un- 
righteousness that  they  will  never  lack  abundant  opportunities 
for  doing  so.  By  representing  Lazarus  as  laid  at  the  rich 
man's  gate  He  affirms  the  existence  of  opportunities  of  the 
most  obtrusive  sort,  forcing  themselves  on  men's  attention, 
and  not  to  be  escaped  ;  not  needing  to  be  sought  out,  but 
seeking  them  out  and  compelling  them  to  realise  their  re- 
sponsibilities. 

When  once  it  is  understood  that  Lazarus  is  but  a  symbol 
for  ample,  urgent,  inescapable  opportunity,  it  is  seen  to  be 
the  obvious  implication  that  Dives  is  one  who  neglects  his 
opportunities.  The  assertion  of  opportunity  is  made  for  the 
very  purpose  of  implying  such  neglect.  It  has  indeed  been 
asked  by  some,  anxious  to  fasten  on  the  parable  an  Ebion- 
itic  bias,  if  the  rich  man  was  inhuman,  why  was  the  poor  man 
deposited  by  friends  at  his  door  ? l  And  we  willingly  allow 
force  to  the  question,  so  far  as  to  admit  that  the  natural 
probability  of  the  parable  requires  us  to  think  of  Lazarus  as 
getting  something  at  the  rich  man's  gate  ;  at  least  a  pittance 
sufficient  to  stave  off  starvation,  and  to  make  it  worth  while 
for  his  relatives  to  bring  him  thither.  And  we  can  afford  to 
admit  that  he  did  get  some  crumbs  from  the  great  man's 
table,  through  the  hands  of  servants ;  nay,  possibly  by  the 
order  of  their  master,  who,  being  aware  that  an  object  of  pity 
lay  at  his  street  gate,  may  have  given  instructions  to  that 
effect,  not  without  a  feeling  of  satisfaction  and  self-com- 
placency. a    To  what  does  all  this  amount  to  ?     Simply  to 

'  So  De  Wette ;  vid.  note  1,  p.  377. 

*  The  clause,  ical  oiStie  iSiSov  avrtp,  found  in  some  cursive  MSS.  and 
versions,  borrowed  doubtless  from  Luke  xv.  16,  is  a  gloss  arising  out  of 
the  feeling,  that  even  a  minimum  of  humanity  is  excluded  by  the  inten- 
tion of  the  parable.  As  such  it  is  regarded  as  a  correct  comment  by 
Meyer  and  Trench.  In  proof  that  the  beggar  received  nothing,  Goebel 
emphasises  imOvpuip,  and  interprets,  desiring  in  vain.  In  a  similar  strain 
Trench  writes,  speaking  of  the  crumbs  :  •'  Even  these  were  not  thrown  to 
hira,  or  not  in  measure  sufficient  to  satisfy  his  hunger."  Kuinoel  and 
Hofmann,  on  the  other  hand,  think  it  is  implied  that  Lazarus  did  receive 
the  usual  beggar' s  portion. 


ch.  vui.]  Dives  and  Lazarus.  387 

this — that  Dives  was  not  a  monster  of  inhumanity.  Christ 
had  no  intention  of  painting  a  monster ;  it  was  never  His  way 
to  bring  exaggerated  and  indiscriminate  charges  against  those 
whose  lives  He  disapproved,  but  rather  to  make  generous 
admissions,  even  when  dealing  in  stern  condemnation.  What 
He  desired  to  do  in  the  present  instance  was  to  hold  up  the 
picture  of  an  average  man  of  the  world,  living  a  self-centred 
life,  coming  utterly  short  of  the  true  ideal,  while  not  without 
such  small  virtues  as  men  of  the  world  ordinarily  practise. 
If  among  these  small  virtues  that  of  doling  out  little  charities 
to  the  poor  found  a  place,  then,  by  all  means,  He  would  say,  let 
this  be  conceded  to  Dives.  He  conceded  as  much  to  the 
Pharisees,  whom,  nevertheless,  He  pronounced  great  sinners, 
even  in  their  very  almsgiving.  He  could  concede  this  to  Dives, 
and  yet  represent  him  as  one  who  neglected  opportunities  for 
the  exercise  of  humanity.1  Ah,  not  so  easily  was  Christ's 
ideal  of  humanity  to  be  realised !  Not  by  doling  out  crumbs 
to  beggars  could  one  gain  the  honourable  name  of  a  friend 
of  man.  He  who  would  win  that  high  degree  must  not  only 
give  alms  in  a  small  way,  but  bear  the  miseries  of  men  as  a 
burden  on  his  heart,  in  the  spirit  of  Him  who,  though  rich,  for 
our  sakes  became  poor.  He  must  behave  towards  the  Lazar- 
uses  at  his  gate  as  the  good  Samaritan  behaved  towards  the 
wounded  man.  He  must  act  as  that  king  of  whom  it  is 
written,  that  he  ate  and  drank  and  did  judgment  and  justice, 
and  especially  that  he  judged  the  cause  of  the  poor  and 
needy.2  He  must  gain  the  blessing  of  them  that  are  ready  to 
perish  as  Job  gained  it,  who  could  protest  that  he  had  not 
withheld  the  poor  from  their  desire,  or  caused  the  eyes  of  the 
widow  to  fail,  or  seen  any  perish  for  want  of  clothing,  or  any 
poor  whose  loins  had  not  been  warmed  with  the  fleece  of  his 
sheep,  or  any  stranger  to  whom  he  had  not  opened  his  doors.8 
After  all  has  been  said  that  can  be  said  in  his  behalf,  Dives  is 
obviously  not  a  man  of  this  heroic  type  :  not  a  good  Samaritan, 
not  a  benignant  prince,  not  a  generous,  noble-hearted  Job,  not 
a  man  who  knows  anything  of  the  passion  for  beneficence,  of 

»  Kuinoel  remarks,  that  though  Dives  gave  crumbs  to  Lazarus,  he  did 
not  thereby  make  himself  out  a  humane  man,  or  comply  with  the  precepts 
of  the  law  and  the  prophets  as  set  forth  in  such  texts  as  Deut.  xv.  7, 8 } 
Isa.  lviii.  7  ;  Prov.  iii.  27. 

2  Jer.  xxii.  15,  16.  •  Job  xxxi.  16 — 22. 

C  C2 


388         The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  11 

the 'enthusiasm  of  humanity;'  but  merely  a  commonplace 
man  of  the  world,  with  vulgar,  self-centred  aims,  and  no 
virtues  and  humanities,  save  such  as  are  conventional. 

The  description  given  of  the  state  of  Lazarus  quite  answers 
to  this  view  of  the  behaviour  of  the  rich  man.  Whatever 
was  done  for  the  leprous  beggar,  left  him  as  he  was  when  he 
was  first  laid  down  at  the  rich  man's  gate.  The  ve-y  word 
ifiefikiiTo,  though  it  means  strictly  only  '  lay,'  might  be 
adduced  in  proof  of  this,  as  implying  on  the  part  of  those 
who  brought  him  there  and  threw  him  down,  the  hard,  un- 
feeling manner  of  men  accustomed  to  misery,  who  had  ceased 
to  hope,  and  had  experienced  nothing  at  the  hands  of  Dives 
to  change  their  mood.  Then  the  pathetic  trait  of  the  dogs 
licking  the  ulcers  is  very  significant.  Some  take  it  as  con- 
veying the  idea  that  the  dogs  showed  themselves  more  humane 
than  Dives,  possibly  their  owner,  cleaning  and  soothing  the 
sores  by  their  soft  tongues,  adducing  this  feature  as  one  of 
the  evidences  that  a  charge  of  inhumanity  against  the  rich 
man  is  intended.1  Others  take  it  as  an  aggravation  of  the 
poor  man's  misery,  holding  that  the  effect  of  the  canine 
attentions  would  be  the  reverse  of  soothing.2  We  take  it  as 
expressing  neither  alleviation  nor  aggravation,  but  simply  as 
giving  vividness  to  the  description  of  the  sufferer's  chronic 
condition.  He  lay  there  utterly  helpless,  so  that  the  dogs 
approached  him  without  fear,  as  if  he  were  a  dead  carcase 
rather  than  a  living  being.8  Such  he  was  from  the  first, 
and  such  he  continued  to  be  till  beneficent  death  came  and 
rescued  him  from  his  misery,  and  the  manner  in  which  his 
death  is  spoken  of  completes  the  proof  that  he  had  received 
no  effectual  attentions  from  his  fellow-creatures  during  his 
lifetime.  He  died  as  he  had  lived — a  beggar,  and  his  carcase 
was  disposed  of  as  if  it  had  been  that  of  a  beast ;  for  so  we 
understand  the  absence  of  all  reference  to  his  burial.  Meyer 
infers  therefrom,  that  the  body  as  well  as  the  soul  of  the 
beggar  was  carried  by  the  angels  to  Paradise.  Calvin,  with 
better   exegetical   tact,  suggests  that  nothing  is  said   as  to 

1  So  Bleek,  Hofmann. 

*  Bengel  says  the  tongue  of  a  dog  would  soothe  a  body  slightly  diseased 
(minus  affecto\  but  would  increase  the  pain  of  one  covered  with  ulcers. 

•  So  Maldonatus,  Grotius,  &c. 


CH.  viii. J  Dives  and  Lazarus,  389 

what  happened  to  the  body,  because  it  was  contemptuously, 
and  without  honour,  thrown  into  a  ditch. 

In  confirmation  of  the  view  now  taken  of  the  rich  man's 
character,  it  is  legitimate  to  take  into  account  the  words  put 
into  the  mouth  of  Abraham  as  descriptive  of  his  earthly  state 
in  contrast  to  that  of  Lazarus,  "  Thou  in  thy  lifetime  receivedst 
thy  good  things,  and  likewise  Lazarus  evil  things."  Various 
shades  of  meaning  have  been  assigned  to  the  words.  Ac- 
centuating the  verb  in  the  former  part  of  the  sentence,  some 
bring  out  of  it  the  meaning,  "  Thou  didst  get  in  full,  or  before- 
hand, thy  good  things."  x  Others,  emphasising  the  pronoun 
'  thy,'  render  :  "  Thou  receivedst  the  things  on  which  thy  heart 
was  set,  which  alone  thou  accountedst  good."  2  This  much  at 
least  is  implied  —  there  was  no  communication  of  goods 
worth  mentioning.  Happiness  was  the  lot  of  Dives,  and 
misery  of  Lazarus,  and  the  former  kept  all  his  happiness 
to  himself,  and  took  no  pains  to  make  his  woe-stricken  fellow- 
creature  partaker  of  it. 

On  all  these  grounds  we  cannot  doubt  that  it  was  the 
intention  of  our  Lord  to  reproach  Dives  as  one  who  regulated 
not  his  life  by  the  law  of  love,  and  who  utterly  failed  to  act 
on  the  maxim  of  making  for  himself  friends  with  the  mammon 
of  unrighteousness.  But  when  we  turn  to  Lazarus,  and  ask 
whether  there  is  any  indication  in  the  first  part  of  the  parable 
of  an  intention  to  describe  him  as  not  only  a  poor,  but  also 
a  pious  man,  we  must  answer  in  the  negative.  For  reasons 
already  indicated,  we  cannot  attach  any  importance  to  the 
presence  or  the  import  of  the  name  Lazarus.  It  may  be 
assumed  as  certain,  that  had  the  design  of  the  parable  re- 
quired that  the  beggar's  piety  should  be  emphasised  in  the 
description  of  his  earthly  state,  an  epithet  would  have  been 
introduced  to  indicate  the  fact  unmistakably.  But  how,  then, 
are  we  to  account  for  the  absence  of  such  an  epithet  in  view 
of  the  fact  that  Lazarus  at  death  goes  to  heaven,  if  we  are  not 
to  say,  with  the  Tubingen  critics,  that  his  translation  to  bliss 
is  the  consolation  for  his  earthly  state  of  poverty  ?  That  is 
the  second  question  Ave  have  to  consider,  and  the  answer  we 
give  to  it  yields,  we  think,  a  strong  confirmation  of  our  view 
as  to  the  didactic  drift  of  the  parable.  Lazarus,  though 
1  So  Meyer  and  Godet.  •  So  Hofmann. 


390  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  H, 

devout, — for  of  course  that  is  implied  in  his  going  to  the 
bosom  of  Abraham, — is  not  represented  as  such,  because  the 
mention  of  the  fact  was  not  necessary  to  constitute  him  a 
legitimate  object  of  charity,  but  was  rather  fitted  to  convey 
a  false  impression  as  to  the  grounds  on  which  the  duties  of 
humanity  rest.  If  we  are  right  in  the  view,  that  to  hold  up 
the  neglect  of  these  duties  to  reprobation  is  the  aim  of  the 
parable,  then  to  speak  of  the  piety  of  Lazarus,  however 
sincer.*,  would  have  been  misleading  irrelevance.  For  it  is 
not  to  the  pious  poor  alone,  but  to  all  the  destitute,  suffering, 
and  miserable,  of  whatever  character,  that  we  owe  the  offices 
of  ch.irity.  As  Christ  came  not  to  call  the  righteous,  so  we 
are  not  to  pick  out  the  godly  from  among  the  children  of 
poverty  and  affliction  as  the  recipients  of  our  sympathy  and 
succour.  Character  may  make  a  difference  as  to  our  mode 
of  showing  sympathy,  but  not  as  to  the  cherishing  of  the 
feeling  of  pity,  the  proper  object  of  which  is  misery.  It 
would  therefore  have  been  an  impertinence  in  Dives  to  excuse 
his  lack  of  compassion  towards  Lazarus  by  saying,  "  I  did 
not  know  he  was  a  saint."  It  was  enough  that  he  knew  he 
was  a  sufferer.  It  is  just  because  this  is  so  that  the  parable 
is  silent  concerning  the  moral  qualities  of  Lazarus.  That 
silence  is  exactly  what  we  should  expect  on  our  view  as  to 
the  intention  of  the  parable,  and  the  fact  is  an  argument  in 
favour  of  that  view. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  same  reason  which  prescribed 
silence  concerning  the  good  qualities  of  Lazarus  on  earth 
required  that  prominent  mention  should  be  made  of  the  fact, 
that  on  his  decease  he  went  to  Abraham's  bosom.  The 
didactic  intention  fully  explains  both.  It  is  not  said  that 
Lazarus  lived  piously,  because  not  piety  but  want  is  the 
proper  object  of  benevolence  ;  it  is  said  that  when  he  died 
he  was  carried  by  angels  to  the  bosom  of  Abraham,  because 
he  is  needed  there  as  an  illustration  of  the  advantage  of 
having  friends  who  can  facilitate  our  admission  into  the 
eternal  tents,  For  that  is  really  the  reason  why  the  poor 
leper,  who  on  earth  lay  at  the  rich  man's  gate,  goes  to  the 
regions  of  bliss,  so  far  as  our  parable  is  concerned.  In  real 
life  men  go  to  heaven  because  they  are  good  ;  in  parables 
they  may  go  there  because  the  motive  of  the  story  requires 


ch.  vjii.]  Dives  and  Lazarus*  391 

them  to  be  there.  In  saying  this  we  do  not  of  course  mean 
to  imply  that  it  is  beneficence  to  the  pious  poor  alone  that 
counts,  in  other  words,  that  unless  the  objects  of  beneficence 
go  to  heaven  the  labour  of  the  humane  is  in  vain.  The 
loving  may  be  received  into  the  eternal  tents,  when  those 
who  have  been  the  recipients  of  their  charity  themselves 
fail  to  gain  an  entrance.  But  when  the  doctrine  that  bene- 
ficence has  value  in  the  sight  of  God,  the  Judge  of  men,  is 
put  in  the  form  which  it  assumes  in  the  previous  parable, 
viz.  that  by  beneficence  men  make  for  themselves  friends  to 
receive  them  into  heaven,  it  is  obviously  necessary  that  these 
friends  should  themselves  be  conceived  of  as  being  there.  It 
may  be  objected,  that  on  this  view  the  presence  of  Lazarus 
in  paradise  remains  still  unaccounted  for,  having  a  motive, 
indeed,  but  no  natural  cause.  This  is  true  ;  but  it  is  an 
unavoidable  defect  arising  out  of  the  fact  that  Lazarus  has 
to  perform  two  roles  with  conflicting  qualifications.  On  earth 
he  represents  the  objects  of  compassion,  who  are  the  miserable, 
saintly  or  otherwise  ;  in  heaven  he  represents  the  friends 
who  receive  the  benevolent  into  the  eternal  tents,  who  could 
not  themselves  be  there  unless  they  had  been  saintly  as  well 
as  poor.  The  defect  is  no  argument  against  our  theory  oi 
the  didactic  significance  of  the  parable,  but  is  one  inseparable 
from  the  parabolic  style  of  instruction.  It  makes  for  our 
view,  that  by  it  we  can  account  both  for  the  silence  concerning 
the  piety  of  Lazarus  on  earth,  and  for  his  presence  never- 
theless in  heaven.  On  the  ordinary  theory,  according  to 
which  the  parable  teaches  the  general  doctrine  of  eternal 
recompense,  neither  is  explained ;  and  so  the  presence  of 
Lazarus  in  paradise  remains  at  once  without  cause  and 
without  motive. 

We  pass  now  from  the  first  scene  to  the  second,  from  earth 
to  Hades,  the  common  receptacle  of  the  dead.  Sooner  or 
later  death  overtakes  all  men,  and  so  it  came  to  pass  that  the 
beggar  died,  and  the  rich  man  also  died  and  was  buried. 
The  beggar  dies  first,  in  accordance  with  the  requirements  of 
natural  probability ;  for  he  suffers  from  a  deadly  disease 
which  must  soon  cut  him  off,  while  the  rich  man  is  full  of 
health  and  strength.  Death  brings  an  exchange  of  fortunes ; 
the  beggar  formerly  left  to  the  tender  mercies  of  dogs,  is 


39*  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  ii. 

carried  by  angels  to  the  bosom  of  Abraham  ;  the  rich  man 
finds  himself  in  a  very  different  quarter  of  Hades,  where 
torments  are  experienced.  The  latter  fact  is  gently  insinuated 
in  a  participial  clause,  partly  from  pity,  partly  because  it  is 
not  the  purpose  of  the  speaker  formally  to  teach  the  doctrine 
that  there  is  a  place  of  tor(ments,  which  is  assumed  as  a 
currently  received  truth,  but  to  convey  a  hint  as  to  the  kind 
of  people  who  go  there.  But,  however  reluctantly,  the  word 
must  be  spoken.  "  Being  in  torments," — where  else  could 
such  an  one  as  Dives  be  ?  Not  surely  in  Paradise,  the  home 
of  the  loving  ;  in  the  bosom  of  Abraham,  the  father  of  the 
faithful !  The  torments  of  the  fires  of  Gehenna  teach  Dives 
a  lesson,  which,  in  the  fulness  of  earthly  felicity,  he  had  never 
needed  to  learn — the  value  of  a  friend.  "  Oh  for  one  able 
and  willing  to  bring  to  me  the  faintest  alleviation  of  this 
pain ! "  So  the  tormented  man  is  represented  as  raising  his 
eyes,  and  seeing  in  the  distance,  across  the  abyss  that  divides 
the  two  regions  of  Hades,  Lazarus  nestling  in  the  bosom  of 
the  patriarch,  and  requesting  that  his  former  petitioner  might 
be  sent  to  distil  a  little  water,  drop  by  drop,  with  the  tips 
of  his  fingers  on  his  burning,  parched  tongue.  Insignificant 
boon,  corresponding  to  the  morsels  of  food  which  was  all 
that  the  beggar  desired  ;  but  misery  is  thankful  for  small 
mercies.  What  a  vastly  greater  benefit  Dives  might  have 
gained  through  Lazarus,  had  he  only  turned  his  acquaintance 
with  him  to  account  in  good  time !  Had  he  made  of  him  a 
friend  with  his  worldly  possessions  he  might  have  been  his 
companion  in  Paradise.  But  now,  so  far  from  attaining  that 
felicity,  he  cannot  even  obtain  the  little  favour  he  craves. 
All  or  nothing  is  the  rule.  So  Abraham  tells  him  in  effect 
in  the  sequel  of  this  Dialogue  of  the  Dead,  in  words  whose 
very  gentleness  and  courtesy  make  them  a  message  of  despair 
rather  than  of  comfort.1  Two  reasons  are  given  for  the 
refusal :  the  law  of  equity,  and  the  impossibility  of  complying 
with  the  request.     What  was  fitting  had  happened  to  both 

1  Brouwer,  speaking  of  the  decorum  of  Christ  s  parables,  as  exemplified 
in  the  one  before  us,  contrasts  the  mild  terms  in  which  Abraham  addressed 
Dives  with  the  harsh  language  which  is  addressed  to  the  lost  in  the 
parables  of  the  Talmudists,  such  as:  "O  most  foolish  man  that  evei 
lived." — '  De  Parabolis  Jesu  Christi,'  p.  91. 


ch.  viii.]  Dives  and  Lazarus.  393 

parties.  The  one  had  received  his  full  share  of  felicity  on 
earth  and  was  now  in  sorrow ;  the  other  had  drunk  a  full 
cup  of  misery  and  was  now  comforted.  The  rich  man  had 
done  nothing  for  the  poor  man  in  bygone  days,  why  should 
the  poor  man  be  asked  to  do  anything  for  him  now?  It  was 
fair  that  every  one  should  have  his  turn.  But  even  if  Lazarus 
were  willing  to  render  the  service  it  was  not  in  his  power. 
Between  the  two  regions  of  Hades  was  fixed  a  great  ravine 
impassable  either  way.  The  former  reason  is  of  the  nature 
of  an  argument um  ad  hominem,  deriving  a  large  part  of  its 
force  from  the  very  fact  of  its  being  addressed  to  a  selfish 
man.  One  who  had  not  troubled  himself  about  Lazarus, 
could  not  but  feel  the  point  of  the  retort :  why  then  should 
Lazarus  trouble  himself  about  you  ?  It  was  but  paying 
him  back  with  his  own  coin,  applying  to  him  the  lex  talionis 
of  the  dispensation  under  which  he  had  lived,  and  of  which 
he  had  taken  due  advantage.  Hence  he  makes  no  attempt 
to  argue  the  matter  with  Abraham,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
request  for  his  brethren,  and  this  fact  supplies  another  proof 
that  we  have  rightly  conceived  the  character  of  his  life  on 
earth,  as  that  of  a  man  who  had  lived  for  himself.  Conscience 
makes  him  a  coward,  and  he  has  no  spirit  left  to  say  even 
this  much :  "  I  own  I  have  no  claim,  but  may  I  not  receive 
this  small  service  as  a  matter  of  grace  ? "  To  this  question 
however,  though  not  asked,  Abraham  replies  in  the  second 
reason  for  refusal.  Willingness  on  the  part  of  Lazarus  to 
go  on  an  errand  of  mercy  is  not  denied,  it  is  rather  tacitly 
conceded ;  what  is  asserted  is  the  impossibility  of  intercom- 
munication. The  assertion  provokes  in  us  many  questions  j 
What  is  this  dreadful  chasm  ?  Why  is  it  fixed  ?  For  how 
long?  Cannot  it  be  bridged  over?  What  is  impossible  to 
love  or  to  penitence  ?  Could  not  the  one  find  its  way  to 
yonder  side,  and  the  other  to  the  hither  side  ?  These  ques- 
tions the  parable  was  not  meant  to  answer,  therefore  they  are 
not  raised.  Dives  acquiesces  in  the  reasoning,  and  presses 
his  request  no  further.  In  any  case  it  was  not  meet  to  put 
such  questions  in  his  mouth,  not  merely  because  they  were 
not  questions  of  the  age,  but  specially  because  they  were  not 
questions  for  the  like  of  him.  He  was  of  too  low  a  rroral 
type  to  feel   the  pressure  of  such  problems.     Had  he  been 


394      The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  II. 

capable  of  that  he  would  never  have  been  where  he  was. 
And  being  where  he  was,  he  could  not  easily  rise  above  his 
former  moral  level.  That  difficulty  perhaps  furnishes  the 
best  clue  to  the  mystery  of  the  fixed  gulf.  What  is  impossible 
to  penitence,  is  it  asked  ?  But  what  if  penitence  itself  be 
impossible  ?  Difficult  it  certainly  is.  The  difficulty  is  implied 
in  the  very  acquiescence  of  Dives  in  Abraham's  reasoning. 
That  reasoning  is  by  no  means  exhaustive.  It  does  not 
say  the  last  word  on  the  subject  raised  ;  it  does  not  anticipate 
and  dispose  of  all  questions  ;  at  most  it  settles  the  matter  in 
hand  only  from  the  lex  talionis  point  of  view.  But  it  is 
conclusive  for  Dives  because  it  is  adapted  to  his  moral  tone. 
The  first  reason  has  irresistible  force  for  him  because  his 
conscience  tells  him  that  he  has  been  a  selfish  man  ;  the 
second  has  equal  cogency,  because  he  is  incapable  of  enter- 
taining the  thought  of  bridging  the  gulf  by  self-condemnation. 
The  acquiescence  of  Dives  in  Abraham's  reasoning  thus  does 
more  than  show,  as  we  have  said,  that  he  was  a  man  for 
whom  self  has  been  the  chief  end.  It  shows,  moreover,  that 
to  escape  from  the  perdition  to  which  such  a  life  surely 
conducts  is  difficult,  not  to  say  impossible.  The  loving  and 
the  beneficent  make  for  themselves  friends  to  receive  them 
into  the  eternal  tents.  But  the  unloving  and  inhuman  banish 
themselves  to  a  realm  of  darkness  and  pain  out  of  which  they 
shall  hardly  be  delivered,  not  because  of  any  external  barriers, 
but  because  of  obstacles  presented  in  their  own  hearts.  The 
gulf  which  divides  the  two  classes  is  as  wide  as  the  difference 
between  selfishness  and  self-sacrifice,  and  is  so  fixed  because 
these  moral  characteristics  tend  to  permanence.  In  '  hell ' 
are  they  who  have  loved  themselves ;  in  heaven  are  they 
who  -have  loved  others  as  themselves — how  hard  to  go  over 
from  the  one  class  to  the  other;  to  be  transformed  from  a 
Dives  into  a  good  Samaritan  ! 

Before  passing  on  to  the  closing  section  of  the  parable,  we 
may  here  briefly  remark  that  the  phraseology  employed  by 
Christ  in  describing  the  place  of  the  dead  is  mostly  borrowed 
from  the  current  dialect  of  the  time.  The  'bosom  of 
Abraham '  was  a  title  for  the  abode  of  the  blessed  in  common 
use  among  the  Jews.  The  ministry  of  angels  in  conveying 
the  spirits  of  the  just  thither  had  also  its  place  in  the  popular 


ch.  viii.]]  Dives  and  Lazarus.  395 

belief.1  Dialogues  of  the  dead  formed  a  part  of  the  enter- 
tainment which  the  Rabbis  provided  for  their  pupils.  Para- 
dise, Abraham's  bosom,  Hades,  Gehenna  were  not  so  closely- 
shut  that  the  voices  of  the  blessed  and  the  pains  of  the 
tormented  could  not  penetrate  from  either  region  to  the  other, 
and  also  to  the  ears  of  the  teachers  who  could  report  what 
they  heard  for  the  benefit  of  their  disciples.2  The  Divine 
Artist  who  painted  the  startling  picture  before  us,  adopted 
a  traditional  theme,  and  dipped  His  brush  in  conventional 
colours,  departing  from  use  and  wont  only  in  the  one  par- 
ticular of  the  fixed  chasm ;  thereby  making  the  separation 
wider  than  in  the  Rabbinical  representation,  according  to 
which  the  two  regions  are  divided  only  by  a  wall,  or  even  by 
a  hair's  breadth ; 8  a  fact  worthy  of  notice  as  showing  that 
Jesus  had  no  disposition  to  minimise  the  gravity  of  the 
outlook  in  the  state  beyond  the  grave.  But,  on  the  whole, 
the  picture  of  the  invisible  world  here  presented  is  not  to  be 
taken  as  didactically  significant.  The  one  point  of  doctrinal 
instruction  in  the  parable  thus  far,  is  that  set  forth  likewise 
in  the  account  of  the  last  Judgment,  viz.  that  men  like  Dives 
are  excluded  from  the  goodly  fellowship  of  those  who  spent 
their  lives  on  earth  in  deeds  of  love. 

In  the  close  of  the  parable,  the  additional  but  connected 
and  subordinate  lesson  is  taught,  that  for  the  life  of  selfishness 
there  is  no  excuse  on  the  score  of  ignorance.  In  making  this 
the  lesson  of  the  concluding  part,  we  assume  that  the  request 
of  Dives  in  behalf  of  his  brethren  is  indirectly  self-excuse. 
This  may  seem  an  ungenerous  assumption,  especially  in 
view  of  the  construction  put  on  the  request  by  enthusiastic 
advocates  of  '  the  Eternal  Hope '  as  an  indication  that  Dives, 
under  the  purgatorial  fires  of  the  intermediate  state,  is  under- 
going rapid  moral  improvement.  We  have  all  respect  for 
the  motives  of  those  who  thus  argue,  and  we  have  no  wish 
to  make  Dives  appear  worse  than  he  is.  As  in  forming  a 
judgment  of  his  life  on  earth,  we  did   not  accuse  him  of 

1  Vide  Lightfoot,  «  Hor.  Heb.' 

•  Hausrath,  '  Zeitgeschichte,'  ii.  278. 

1  "What  is  the  distance  between  Paradise  and  Gehenna?  According 
to  Johanan,  a  wall ;  according  to  Acha,  a  palm-breadth  ;  according  to 
other  Rabbis,  only  a  finger-breadth."  Midrash  on  Koheleth,  quoted  by 
Dr.  Farrar  in  '  Mercy  and  Judgment,'  p.  205. 


396         The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,     {[book  u. 

refusing  crumbs  to  Lazarus,  so  we  are  willing  to  give  him 
full  credit  for  the  solicitude  he  manifests  after  his  decease 
for  his  surviving  brethren.     And  we  gladly  note,  as  one  more 
index  of  the  geniality  of  the  parable,  that  no   anxiety  is 
evinced  to  rob  Dives  of  this  praise.     Only  we  must  add  that 
it  does  not  amount  to  much.     The  humanity  of  Dives  in 
Hades  is  not  charity,  but  only  such  love  as  even  publicans 
and  harlots  practise ;  natural  affection  for  an  extended  self, 
indicative  therefore  of  continuity  of  character  rather  than  of 
radical  change.     And  we  question  whether  in  the  intention 
of  the  speaker  it  be  even  this  much  ;   whether  love  for  the 
extended  self  be  not  at  bottom  love  for  the  unextended  self. 
That  is,  we  think  Christ's  aim  in  introducing  this  trait  is  not 
to  show  that  unblessed  spirits  cherish  natural  affections,  but 
to  take  away  all  ground  of  excuse  from  those  who  live  the 
life   that    has   exclusion   from    bliss    for   its    penalty.     The 
speaker's  real   purpose   is  to  tell  the   living   that   they   are 
without  excuse  If  they  so  live  as  to  forfeit  bliss.     But  instead 
of  doing  this  in  abstract  terms,  he  prefers  to  do  it  through 
the  machinery  of  the  parable,  as  in  the  case  of  the  parable 
of  the    Lost    Son,   where   the   elder   brother  represents  the 
Pharisees   who   blamed  Christ   for   His   sympathy  with    the 
leper.     Therefore  he  makes  Dives  proffer  a  request  which 
leads  up  to  the  declaration,  that  in  Moses  and  the  prophets 
men  have  sufficient  means  of  grace  to  teach  them  how  to 
live.     The  answer  pointedly  excludes  all  self-excuse  on  the 
score  of  defective  aids  to  piety,  and  so  implies  self-excuse 
as  the  motive  of  this  request.     The  secret  thought  of  Dives 
is:    Had  I  been  warned  it  might- have  been  otherwise.     In 
like  manner  we  cannot  so  far  stretch  our  charity  as  to  give 
Dives  credit  for  the  peculiar  urgency  he  shows  in  behalf  of 
his  brethren.     It   is   certainly  a  curious  circumstance,  that 
whilst  abstaining  from  pressing  his  petition  for  himself,  he 
ventures  to  expostulate  with  Abraham  in  pleading  for  his 
brethren,  after  the  manner  of  Abraham  himself  in  pleading 
for  Sodom.     We  are  not  inclined  to  see  in  this  a  reflection 
of  the  spirit  of  Rabbinical  dispute  and  Pharisaic  impudence.1 
But  neither  can  we  see  in  it  a  trace  of  disinterested  love. 
The  repetition  of  the  demand  is  meant  merely  to  supply  a 
1  So  Godet. 


en.  vui.]  Dives  and  Lazarus.  397 

motive  for  the  utterance  of  the  sentiment,  that  those  who  arc 
not  moved  to  piety  by  the  means  actually  available,  would 
not  be  moved  by  any  means,  however  extraordinary.  Doubt- 
less the  law  of  probability  requires  that  this  should  be  done 
in  a  natural  way ;  but  this  remark  cuts  two  ways.  It  may 
imply  that  Dives  was  particularly  anxious  for  the  welfare 
of  his  brethren  ;  but  it  may  also  imply  that  he  was  very 
desirous  to  justify  himself  by  some  such  reflection  as  this: 
Had  only  some  one  come  from  the  dead,  with  the  calm,  clear 
light  of  eternity  shining  in  his  eyes,  to  inform  me  that  the 
life  beyond  is  no  fable,  that  Paradise  is  a  place  or  state  of 
unspeakable  bliss,  and  Gehenna  a  place  or  state  of  unspeak- 
able woe,  had  I  not  then  renounced  my  voluptuous,  selfish 
ways,  and  entered  on  the  path  of  piety  and  charity  ?  If  one 
had  come  to  me  from  the  dead  I  had  surely  repented,  and  so 
would  not  have  come  to  this  place  of  torment. 

The  didactic  point  then  here  is,  that  the  selfish  life  is  inex- 
cusable, and  therefore  justly  visited  with  penalties.  But  how 
does  this  appear  ?  The  reply  of  Abraham  is :  "  They  have 
Moses  and  the  prophets,  let  them  hear  them."  It  is  a  reply 
addressed  to  a  Jew,  and  exactly  adapted  to  the  actual  religious 
practice  in  the  synagogue,  in  which  precisely  the  parts  of  the 
Old  Testament  named  the  law  and  the  prophets  (those  only, 
not  the  Hagiographa)  were  regularly  read.1  It  implies  that 
these  books  were  sufficient  as  a  guide  of  life  to  all  men  of 
right  dispositions,  without  any  further  extraordinary  means 
of  grace,  and  that  when  they  failed,  a  better  result  could  not 
be  reached  by  any  conceivable  means.  To  the  men  of  right 
mind  a  messenger  from  the  dead  was  wholly  unnecessary, 
and  to  the  men  of  wrong  mind  he  would  be  utterly  useless. 
It  was  a  reply  not  to  be  gainsaid  by  any  Jew,  the  truth  of 
the  implied  affirmations  being  sufficiently  proved  by  the  lives 
of  the  saints  who  lived  under  the  old  dispensation,  and  had 
not  more  than  the  law  and  the  prophets  for  their  rule  of 
faith  and  practice,  and  many  of  them,  such  as  Abraham 
himself,  not  even  so  much.  One  thing  very  noticeable  about 
these  books  is  the  little  prominence  they  give  to  the  life  to 
come.  The  fact  of  a  future  life  is  recognised,  but  so  obscurely 
that  Paul  could  truly  speak  of  immortality  as  being  brought 
1  See  Lightfoot 


39 8        The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  ii. 

to  light  through  the  Gospel.  It  is  to  miss  the  point  of 
Abraham's  reference  to  the  Old  Testament  entirely  to  suppose 
that  it  means  that  the  doctrine  of  immortality  is  there  taught 
with  sufficient  clearness.  It  is  nearer  the  mark  to  say,  that 
w  hat  is  meant  is  rather  that  the  knowledge  of  that  doctrine 
is  not  indispensable  to  the  life  of  piety.  Certainly  the  doctrine 
in  question  is  not  clearly  set  forth  or  strongly  insisted  on  in 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  And  if  the  future  life  occupied  a 
quite  subordinate  place  in  Old  Testament  teaching,  we  may 
safely  assume  that  it  occupied  a  still  less  prominent  place  in 
the  thoughts  and  motives  of  Old  Testament  saints.  They 
tested  theories  of  life  by  their  bearings  on  this  world  much 
more  than  by  their  bearings  on  the  next.  Hence  their 
perplexities  respecting  the  mysteries  of  human  life,  their 
querulous  complainings,  e.  g.  concerning  the  sufferings  of  the 
righteous.  But  in  spite  of  their  comparative  ignorance  of 
the  life  to  come,  and  their  consequent  misreading  of  the 
riddles  of  the  present  life,  we  find  no  traces  of  dubiety  as  to 
the  comparative  merits  of  the  two  opposed  schemes  of  life — 
the  way  of  godliness  and  the  way  of  the  world.  They  might 
find  difficulties  in  such  facts  of  Providence  as  are  pictured 
in  this  parable:  a  low-minded  voluptuary,  prosperous,  rich, 
happy  according  to  his  taste,  on  the  one  hand ;  a  saintly  man 
in  beggary,  diseased,  starved,  homeless,  on  the  other.  They 
might,  in  view  of  such  phenomena,  sometimes  ask,  "Why 
doth  the  way  of  the  wicked  prosper  ? "  But  they  never  had 
any  doubt  whether  it  were  better  to  be  good  or  evil,  to  be 
righteous  or  to  be  wicked,  to  be  a  humane  merciful  man,  or 
to  be  a  sordid,  selfish,  heartless  worldling.  Nor  did  they 
hesitate  to  walk  in  the  way  of  godliness  in  spite  of  all  draw- 
backs. They  chose  the  way  that  is  everlasting ;  they  could 
not  do  otherwise  ;  the  spirit  of  God  in  them  would  not  permit 
them.  They  needed  no  messenger  from  the  dead  to  convince 
them  of  the  superiority  of  a  life  of  justice,  mercy,  and  piety 
over  a  life  of  unrighteousness,  inhumanity,  and  sensuality. 
Far  from  that,  they  needed  not  to  know  that  there  was  a  life 
to  come.  The  godly  life  appeared  to  them  superior  intrinsic- 
ally, on  its  own  merits,  apart  altogether  from  the  question 
of  duration.  It  was  self-evident  to  them  that  in  any  case, 
whatever  betide  it  is  better  to  be  a  wise  good  man,  doing 


6H.  vin. J  Dives  and  Lazarus.  399 

justly,  loving  mercy,  walking  humbly  with  God,  and  holding 
all  appetites  and  passions  in  strict  subjection  to  conscience 
and  reason,  than  to  be  clothed  in  purple  and  fine  linen,  and  to 
fare  sumptuously  every  day,  doing  nothing  else  worth  speak- 
ing of.  Even  if  they  knew  certainly  that  there  was  no  hell 
to  fear,  they  could  not  live  as  Dives  lived ;  it  would  be  hell 
enough  to  be  compelled  to  attempt  it. 

It  thus  appears  that  the  Jew  had  amply  sufficient  means  of 
grace,  and  was  therefore  without  excuse  if  he  chose  the  wrong 
way  of  life.  But  it  is  not  the  Jew  alone  that  is  required  to 
live  the  life  of  piety  and  charity.  Christ  taught  that  He  should 
judge  all  the  nations,  and  that  the  principle  of  judgment  would 
be  the  law  of  charity.  Are  the  Pagans  also  without  excuse, 
though  not  having  the  law  and  the  prophets  ?  Yes  ;  because 
the  law  of  humanity  is  written  on  their  hearts,  and  they  need 
no  book,  any  more  than  an  Old  Testament  Jew  needed  a 
clear  doctrine  of  immortality,  to  impose  obligation  to  fulfil  that 
law.  This  position  obviously  underlies  the  representation 
of  the  Judgment,  and  it  is  even  not  obscurely  implied  in  the 
words  put  into  the  mouth  of  Abraham  in  this  parable.  For 
what  is  the  meaning  of  the  assertion,  that  if  they  believe 
not  Moses  and  the  prophets,  neither  will  they  believe  though 
one  rose  from  the  dead  ?  Simply  this,  that  you  cannot  by  any 
means  compel  faith  in  men  morally  indisposed  to  believe. 
That  is,  everything  turns  on  moral  disposition.  In  absence  of 
that,  neither  Bible  nor  messenger  from  the  dead  will  do  me 
any  good.  I  will  find  plausible  reasons  for  disregarding  even 
the  most  potent  and  miraculous  aids  to  faith.  A  messenger 
from  the  dead !  He  would  have  a  preliminary  difficulty  to 
deal  with  ere  he  delivered  his  message.  He  would  find  it 
hard  to  get  himself  recognised  as  a  visitor  from  the  other 
world.  Instead  of  listening  with  awestruck  hearts  to  what  he 
had  to  say,  men  of  unbelieving  temper  would  begin  to  discuss 
whether  the  supposed  visitant  from  the  world  of  spirits  could 
ever  have  been  dead,  or  were  not  a  mere  phantasm ;  nay, 
refusing  to  treat  the  matter  seriously,  they  would  probably 
receive  with  shouts  of  merriment  the  very  idea  of  one  return- 
ing from  the  grave  to  preach  to  them  of  repentance  and 
judgment  to  come.  On  the  other  hand,  does  a  man  of  right 
disposition  require  a  Bible,  not  to  speak  of  a  messenger  from 


400        The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Chrue.      £  book  ii. 

the  dead,  to  tell  him  that  he  ought  to  love  his  neighbour  ? 
Let  the  Pagan  who  has  no  Bible  consult  his  heart,  and  he  will 
find  that  law  written  there.  This  is  the  one  law  for  the 
neglect  of  which  all  men  everywhere  are  without  excuse.  No 
need,  in  order  to  obligation  to  fulfil  this  law,  of  special 
supernatural  inducements ;  no  need  of  knowledge  of  the  life 
to  come ;  no  need  either  of  Moses,  prophets,  or  gospels ;  the 
light  within  is  enough.  Those  who  have  the  benefit  of  such 
special  means  of  grace,  and  yet  neglect  this  law,  are  certainly 
blameworthy  in  a  peculiar  degree ;  but  even  those  who  have 
no  such  privileges  are  for  the  like  neglect  without  excuse. 
Such  in  spirit  is  the  teaching  of  our  parable.  It  declares  love 
to  be  the  supreme  duty,  and  it  declares  the  disregard  thereof 
to  be,  without  exception,  a  deadly  damning  sin,  because  it  is 
a  duty  which  shines  in  the  light  of  its  own  self- evidence. 
What  Abraham  said  to  Dives  was  what  it  was  fitting  to  say 
to  Jews.  But  so  much  could  be  said  to  them  because  it  is 
fitting  and  fair  to  say  to  all :  "  Ye  have  the  voices  of  conscience, 
hear  them." 


THE  UNMERCIFUL  SERVANT. 

Therefore  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven  likened  unto  a  certain  man,  a  king, 
who  would  make  a  reckoning  with  his  servants.  And  when  he  had 
begun  to  reckon,  there  was  brought  unto  him  one  who  was  a  debtor  to 
the  extent  often  thousand  talents.  And  seeing  he  had  not  wherewith 
to  pay,  his  lord  commanded  that  he  should  be  sold,  and  his  wife,  and 
his  children,  and  all  that  he  had,  and  payment  to  be  made.  The 
servant  therefore  fell  down  and  did  obeisance  to  him,  saying,  Lord, 
have  patience  with  me,  and  I  will  pay  thee  all.  And  the  lord  of  that 
servant,  being  moved  with  compassion,  released  him,  and  forgave  him 
the  debt}  But  that  servant  going  out,  found  one  of  his  fellow-servants 
who  owed  him  a  hundred  denarii  :  and  he  laid  hold  on  him,  and  took 
him  by  the  throat,  saying,  Pay  what  thou  owest.  And  his  fellow- 
servant  fell  down  and  besought  him,  saying,  Have  patience  with  me, 
and  I  will  pay  thee?  And  he  would  not,  but  went  and  cast  him  into 
prison,  till  he  should  pay  that  which  was  due.  His  fellow-servants, 
therefore,  seeing  what  was  done,  were  exceedingly  sorry,  and  came 
and  told  their  lord  all  that  was  done.  Then  his  lord  called  him  unto 
him,  and  said  unto  him,  Thou  wicked  servant,  I  forgave  thee  all 

1  rh  Savuov,  literally,  the  loan. 

t  Most  MSS.  omit  wavra.    It  may  have  crept  in  from  ver.  a&     t  . 


ch.  viii.]  The  Unmerciful  Servant.  401 

that  debt,  because  thou  besoughtest  me:  oughtest  thou  not  also  to 
have  had  ?nercy  on  thy  fellow-servant,  even  as  I  had  mercy  on  thee  t 
And  being  wroth,  his  lord  delivered  him  to  the  tormentors,  till  he 
should  pay  all  that  was  due  to  him.  So  shall  also  my  Heavenly  Father 
do  unto  you,  if  ye  forgive  not  every  one  his  brother  from  your  hearts} 
— Matt,  xviii.  7.3 — 35. 

THERE  is  no  difficulty  in  ascertaining  the  didactic  drift  of 
this  parable.  The  moral  it  is  intended  to  teach  is  indicated 
with  perfect  distinctness  by  our  Lord  Himself  in  the  last 
sentence,  in  which  He  applies  the  narrative  to  the  hearts  of 
His  hearers,  the  disciples.  Even  without  that  application  we 
could  easily  deduce  the  lesson  from  the  parable  itself,  viewed 
in  connection  with  its  surroundings.  It  forms  the  fitting 
conclusion  of  a  conversation  between  Jesus  and  His  disciples, 
arising  out  of  their  dispute  as  to  who  should  be  greatest  in 
the  kingdom  of  heaven.  That  dispute  evinced  the  presence 
among  them  of  the  spirit  of  ambition,  whose  characteristic 
tendency  it  is,  at  once  to  be  prone  to  do  wrong,  and  to  be 
very  unforgiving  towards  wrong  done  by  others.  Jesus, 
therefore,  fitly  took  occasion  to  warn  His  disciples  against 
giving  offences,  especially  to  the  weak,  and  to  instruct  them 
how  to  behave  when  they  were  the  receivers,  not  the  givers, 
of  offences.  The  general  tenor  of  the  instructions  given  was 
— be  meek  and  merciful,  not  prone  to  resentment,  hard  to 
appease,  but  good  and  ready  to  forgive.  The  counsel  to 
cherish  a  spirit  of  love  bent  on  overcoming  evil  with  good 
found  its  culminating  expression  in  the  reply  to  Peter's  ques- 
tion, "  How  often  must  I  forgive  ?"  "  Until  seven  times  ? "  the 
disciple  added,  tentatively  answering  his  own  question,  and 
in  doing  so  showing  how  far  the  benignant  spirit  of  his  Master 
had  already  influenced  him,  raising  him  above  the  ideas 
current  in  rabbinical  circles,  which  fixed  the  limit  at  three 
times.8  But  Jesus  went  as  far  beyond  Peter  as  Peter  went 
beyond  the  rabbis  ;  nay,  infinitely  further,  for  He  said,  "  Not 
till  seven  times,  but  until  seventy  times  seven."  That  is, 
times  without  number  ;  your  forgivenesses  must  be  as  numerous 
as  the  implacable  man's  revenges ; 8  you  must  never  weary 

1  r&  irapairTw/xara  aitrStv  (their  trespasses)  seems  to  be  a  gloss  from 
Matt.  vi.  15. 

1  Vide  Lightfoot  and  Wetstein  in  loc. 

•  Some,  not  without  probability,  have  found  in  our  Lord's  words  an 

DO 


402  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  it. 

pardoning  offences.  By  this  strong  utterance  Christ's  thought 
concerning  forgiveness  was  raised  to  the  high  level  at  which 
parabolic  speech  becomes  natural  and  needful :  natural  on 
the  part  of  One  who  was  conscious  that  His  thoughts  on  such 
matters  were  not  those  of  the  world  ;  needful  to  familiarise 
the  minds  of  hearers  with  truths  lofty  and  novel.  Therefore 
Jesus  spake  at  this  time  the  parable  of  The  Unmerciful  Servant, 
the  obvious  aim  of  which  is  to  expose  the  odiousness  and 
criminality  of  an  implacable  temper  in  those  who  are  citizens 
of  the  kingdom  of  heaven — a  kingdom  of  grace  in  which  they 
themselves  occupy  the  position  of  forgiven  men.  Having 
this  for  its  burden,  it  is  emphatically  a  parable  of  grace, 
forming  a  worthy  ending  of  Christ's  discourse  in  Capernaum 
and  of  His  whole  ministry  of  love  in  Galilee  ; x  teaching  His 
disciples  that  the  kingdom  of  heaven  was  a  kingdom  of  grace ; 
a  kingdom  among  whose  blessings  pardon  occupied  a  fore- 
most place  ;  a  kingdom,  therefore,  in  connection  with  which 
ambitious  disputes  concerning  places  of  distinction,  and  still 
more,  vindictive  passions,  were  unseemly  and  intolerable. 

A  certain  severity  of  tone  is  observable  in  the  present 
parable  as  compared  with  the  one  last  considered.  "  His  lord 
was  wroth,  and  delivered  him  to  the  tormentors,  till  he  should 
pay  all  that  was  due  to  him.  So  likewise  shall  My  heavenly 
Father  do  unto  you,  if  ye  forgive  not  every  one  his  brother 
from  your  hearts."  The  reason  is  that  Jesus  speaks  here  to 
offending  disciples,  members  of  His  own  family  circle  whom 
He  loves  dearly,  therefore  rebukes  and  chastens  faithfully ; 
and,  moreover,  to  future  apostles,  on  whose  behaviour  the 
well-being  of  the  Church  about  to  be  founded  largely  depends. 
He  anticipates  the  time,  no  longer  distant,  when  He  shall  be 
personally  removed  from  the  earth,  and  He  is  anxious  to 
prepare  His  chosen  companions  for  playing  worthily  the  part 
of  His  representatives.  This  He  knows  they  cannot  do  so 
long  as  the  spirit  of  ambition  and  vainglory,  which  has 
recently  manifested  itself,  animates  their  breasts.  Therefore 
He  subjects  them  to   the  wholesome  discipline  of  pathetic 

allusion  to  the  speech  of  Lamech  in  Gen.  iv.  24 :  "  If  Cain  shall  be  avenged 
sevenfold,  truly  Lamech  seventy  and  sevenfold." 

1  The  final  separation  from  Galilee  is  recorded  in  the  commencement 
of  the  next  chapter. 


ch.  viii.]  The  Unmerciful  Servant.  403 

example,  heroic  counsel,  and  stern  warning,  that  by  admira* 
tion,  quickened  sense  of  duty,  and  godly  fear,  they  may 
become  morally  transformed  by  the  renewing  of  their  minds. 
Not  merely  the  concluding  parable,  but  the  whole  discourse 
on  humility  savours  of  this  unwonted  rigour :  witness  that 
saying,  "  Whoso  shall  offend  one  of  these  little  ones  which 
believe  in  Me,  it  were  better  for  him  that  a  millstone  were 
hanged  about  his  neck,  and  that  he  were  drowned  in  the 
depth  of  the  sea; "  or  that  still  more  stern  saying  concerning 
the  cutting  off  an  offending  hand,  or  foot,  or  eye.  In  this 
homily  on  lowliness  Jesus  seems  Himself  to  perform  the  part 
of  a  surgeon,  operating  with  the  sharp  knife  of  rebuke  on  the 
diseased  parts  of  the  souls  of  His  disciples.  We  shall  best 
understand  the  parable  with  which  the  homily  closes  by 
regarding  it  from  this  point  of  view. 

This  parable  has  for  its  specific  aim  not  merely  to  inculcate 
the  general  duty  of  forgiveness,  which  is  a  part  of  natural 
ethics,  but  to  inculcate  that  duty  on  men  who  are  themselves 
forgiven  of  God,  and  living  under  a  reign  of  grace.  Hence 
the  unforgiving  man  is  in  the  first  place  represented  as 
himself  the  object  of  pardoning  mercy.  And  in  this  part  of 
the  parabolic  representation  we  note  the  apparently  exagger- 
ated statement  of  the  amount  forgiven — ten  thousand  talents, 
equivalent  to  millions  sterling.1  The  enormous  sum  is  formally 
explained  by  conceiving  of  the  offender  as  a  farmer  of  revenue 
on  a  great  scale,  or  as  the  satrap  of  a  province,  whose  duty  it 
is  to  remit  the  tribute  of  the  country  under  his  jurisdiction 
to  the  sovereign.2  But  this  explanation  only  throws  us  back 
on  the  previous  question  :  Why  is  such  a  magnate  selected 
to  represent  the  forgiven  one  who  forgives  not  ?  A  satisfac- 
tory answer  to  this  question  is  necessary  to  vindicate  the 
verisimilitude  of  the  parable.  Now  the  fitness  of  the  repre- 
sentation appears  in  various  ways.  It  is  fitting,  in  the  first 
place,  as  a  statement  of  the  magnitude  of  all  men's  indebted- 
ness to  God  as  compared  with  the  insignificant  extent  of  the 
moral  indebtedness  of  any  one  man  to  any  other,  represented 

1  The  exact  amount  will  vary  according  to  the  particular  talent  meant ; 
but  the  intention  is  not  to  state  precisely  the  amount  due,  but  to  wnvsy 
the  idea  of  an  immense  sum,  the  payment  of  which  was  hopelesa 

•  Vide  Trench,  who  gives  illustrative  examples,  p.  153,  note. 

DD3 


4<H         The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  ii. 

by  the  hundred  denarii.  It  is  further  fitting  in  some  special 
respects  more  closely  connected  with  the  particular  purpose 
of  the  parable.  It  suits  the  character  in  which  the  disciples 
are  addressed,  as  men  destined  ere  long  to  occupy  princely 
position  in  the  kingdom  of  God.  It  also  suits  the  temper  of 
those  who  are  likely  to  be  guilty  of  harsh,  merciless  dealing 
towards  such  as  have  done  them  wrong.  Implacability  is  the 
sin  of  pride.  But  pride  is  high-minded,  and  just  because  it 
is  so  it  is  a  great  sinner  against  God.  Therefore  it  is  fit 
that  the  implacable  man  should  be  represented  as  occupying 
high  station,  and  likewise  as  a  great  debtor  to  his  lord. 
Once  more,  the  vastness  of  the  debt  owed  and  forgiven  is 
a  just  tribute  to  the  gracious  magnanimity  of  God,  who 
'abundantly  pardons,'  and  from  whose  mercy  even  the  most 
wicked  of  men  are  not  excluded. 

The  conduct  of  the  lord  toward  his  deeply-indebted  servant 
is  a  second  point  in  which  the  parable  seems  chargeable 
with  exaggeration.  At  first  it  appears  unduly  severe,  then 
after  the  debtor  has  presented  his  petition,  unduly  lenient- 
"  Forasmuch,"  we  read,  "  as  he  had  not  to  pay,  his  lord  com- 
manded him  to  be  sold,  and  his  wife,  and  children,  and  all 
that  he  had,  and  payment  to  be  made."  Yet  after  the  debtor 
has  pled  for  time,  his  lord  suddenly  changes  his  tone,  and 
grants  not  time  to  pay,  but  a  free  remission.  Is  it  credible, 
we  are  ready  to  inquire,  that  one  who  issued  such  an  order 
would  confer  so  great  a  favour;  or,  conversely,  that  one 
capable  of  such  magnanimity  would  entertain  thoughts  of  such 
pitiless  rigour  ?  And,  without  doubt,  the  parabolic  represent- 
ation does  wear  an  aspect  of  double  improbability.  Never- 
theless, here  it  is  the  improbable  that  happens.  In  the  first 
place,  as  respects  the  truculent  command,  it  faithfully  reflects 
the  attitude  of  the  law  of  antiquity  towards  debt.  The 
Roman  law  permitted  a  debtor  (in  the  literal  sense)  to  be  so 
treated,  and  the  law  of  Moses  seems  not  to  have  been  behind 
it  in  rigour;1  indeed  the  rude  practice  of  selling  a  man  and 
his  whole  belongings  for  debt  appears  to  have  been  a  common 
feature  in  the  judicial  system  of  ancient  nations.  Therefore 
in  issuing  such  an  order  the  king  was  simply  acting  as  the 

*  Vide  Exod.  xxii.  3 ;  Levit.  xxv.  39,  47 ;  Amos  ii.  6 ;  viii.  6. 


ch.  vin.3  The   Unmerciful  Servant.  405 

mouthpiece  of  the  law  apart  altogether  from  personal  feeling ; 
and  it  is  observable  that  no  such  feeling  is  imputed  to  him 
at  this  stage.  He  could  not  well  do  otherwise  in  the  first 
place,  whatever  compassionate  sentiments  or  purposes  might 
be  latent  in  his  breast.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  free  pardon 
of  the  debt  we  see  the  moral  individuality  of  the  monarch 
displaying  itself.  In  the  command  is  revealed  the  rigour  of 
the  ruler,  in  the  remission  of  the  debt  the  humanity  of  the 
man.  A  very  unusual  humanity  truly,  and  most  unlikely 
to  be  practised  by  men,  whether  kings  or  subjects,  living 
under  barbaric  codes  of  law.  But  the  improbability  at  this 
point  is  inevitable ;  for  the  humanity  must  be  very  unusual 
indeed  which  is  to  represent  the  mercy  of  God.  For  the 
Divine  magnanimity  passes  all  human  example ;  His  ways 
in  forgiving  rise  above  the  ways  of  men  high  as  heaven  rises 
above  earth. 

"  For  the  love  of  God  is  broader 

Than  the  measures  of  man's  mind, 
And  the  heart  of  the  Eternal 
Is  most  wonderfully  kind." 

Viewed  with  reference  to  the  history  of  revelation,  the  rigour 
and  benignity  combined  in  the  behaviour  of  the  king  represent 
the  relation  between  law  and  gospel.  The  command,  Sell  the: 
debtor  and  all  he  hath,  that  the  debt  may  be  paid,  exhibits 
the  legal  attitude  towards  sin  ;  the  free  forgiveness  of  the 
debt  exhibits  the  grace  that  came  in  with  Jesus  Christ.  The 
one  prepared  for  the  other  ;  the  rigour  of  the  law  for  the> 
grace  of  the  gospel.  That  rigour  brought  the  debtor  to  his 
knees,  with  a  petition  coming  far  short  of  the  grace  in  store, 
asking  only  for  time  to  pay,  for  a  hired  servant's  place ;  for 
men  are  unable  to  imagine  and  dare  not  hope  for  the  good 
which  God  has  prepared  for  them.  The  rigour  was  meant  to 
lead  up  to  the  mercy  through  the  way  of  repentance  ;  it  was 
but  a  means  to  an  end,  for  had  it  been  otherwise  the  n.otc 
beneficent  dispensation  had  never  come.1  The  law  was  but  a 
pedagogue  to  conduct  to  Christ. 

*  Euthymius  Zigabenus  expresses  this  thought.  Speaking  of  the  com- 
mand to  sell  for  the  debt,  he  says,  Owe  It,  wixottitoq  Si  tovto  eKeXivtrtv,  a\X 
Ik  ovfiiradtiaQ,  *va  tv\a^i]9t'iQ  eicitvoc  t$v  roiavTtfV  airofaatv  (iiciXtvof))  Kal  tvx1> 
ttjs  a<f>t(Tiu>Q'  ti  yelp  firj  did  tovto  tokovtt\v  iZijvtyictv  airofyaotv  ovk  iv  hcirivoavn 

To  XP1'°G  a<pf)Ktv. 


406  The  Pat  abolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  11. 

When  Christ  came  the  world  entered  into  a  state  of  objective 
grace,  under  which  God  imputeth  not  to  men  their  trespasses  ; 
and  it  becomes  all  who  have  attained  to  the  knowledge  of 
this  truth  to  imitate  the  Divine  charity  in  their  relations  to 
their  fellow-men.  But  the  wranglings  of  His  disciples  gave 
Jesus  too  good  ground  for  the  apprehension  that  an  implacable 
spirit  might  be  by  no  means  a  rare  phenomenon  in  the  era 
of  grace  ;  therefore,  having  in  the  first  part  of  the  parable 
depicted  the  mercy  of  God,  He  proceeded  in  the  second  part 
to  describe  the  unmercifulness  of  so-called  Christian  men. 
The  picture  drawn  is  unspeakably  repulsive,  and  bears  witness 
to  the  deep  abhorrence  with  which  the  Speaker  regarded  an 
unforgiving  spirit  in  one  who  confesses  his  own  need,  and  has 
experienced  the  benefit  of  forgiveness.  The  great  debtor  goes 
forth  from  the  presence  of  his  benignant  master,  straightway 
meets  a  fellow-servant  who  owes  a  petty  debt  to  himself,  in 
the  most  truculent  manner  lays  hold  of  him  and  demands 
immediate  payment,1  and  on  hearing  from  his  debtor's  lips  the 
same  appeal  he  had  previously  made  to  the  king,  refuses  his 
request,  unmoved  by  the  august  presence  from  which  he  has 
just  come,  by  the  memory  of  a  recent  benefit,  and  by  the 
repetition  of  the  words  of  his  own  prayer  ;  and  with  brutal 
ferocity  drags  him  to  prison,  there  to  lie  till  he  has  paid  the 
paltry  sum.  Shall  we  say  there  is  exaggeration  here  too  ?  It 
were  a  comfort  to  be  able  to  think  so,  and  perhaps  it  may  be 
said  truly  that  Christ  draws  the  picture  in  the  darkest  possible 
colours,  that  His  disciples  and  all  who  bear  His  name  might 
be  scared  into  a  holy  fear  of  offending  in  such  wise,  and  a 
godly  jealousy  lest  they  should  bear  the  most  distant  resem- 
blance to  so  odious  a  character.  Yet  we  cannot  flatter  our- 
selves that  the  picture  is  a  purely  ideal  one.  It  is  not  possible 
to  conceive  one  conscious  that  his  own  moral  debt  is  great, 
and  believing  in  the  forgiveness  thereof,  deliberately  so  acting, 

1  The  act  denoted  by  lirviyiv,  seizing  by  the  throat,  though  ferocious, 
was  legal  according  to  Roman  law.  The  approved  reading  in  the  next 
clause,  «  n  tytiXtic — literally,  "if  you  owe  aught" — must  be  understood 
in  sympathy  with  the  truculent  spirit  displayed  in  that  act.  The  «  ri,  as 
Meyer  remarks,  is  neither  courteous  nor  problematical,  but  logical  =  if  you 
owe  you  must  pay.  Unger  puts  it,  "  Conditio  dicta  pro  causa."  Grotius 
says,  u  Solet  tJ  sane  non  conditionem  sed  generalitatem  significare.* 


ch.  viii.]  The  Unmerciful  Servant.  407 

for,  forgiven  much,  he  will  love  much  both  God  and  his  fellow- 
men.  But  it  is  only  too  possible  to  be  under  the  objective 
reign  of  grace,  and  to  take  advantage  of  the  benefits  of  the  era 
of  grace,  not  without  a  certain  appreciation  of  their  value,  yet 
to  regulate  our  relations  to  our  brethren  by  the  strict  regime 
of  law,  aggravated  by  the  superadded  horrors  of  violent  temper 
and  brutal  passion  when  the  slightest  opposition  is  offered  to 
the  immediate  execution  of  our  selfish  will.  How  many 
members  of  Christian  Churches  may  rise  from  the  communion- 
table to  go  forth  on  the  following  day  to  the  perpetration  of 
such  atrocities  in  connection  with  their  secular  business  !  The 
sin  of  merciless  hardness  is  one  which  easily  besets  us  all,  and 
instead  of  asking,  Is  thy  servant  a  dog,  that  he  should  do  such 
a  thing  ?  we  do  well  to  ask,  rather,  Is  it  I  ? 

Even  those  who  might  themselves  be  guilty  of  such  conduct 
would  readily  condemn  it  in  others,  and  hence  the  fellow- 
servants  of  the  two  who  stand  in  the  relation  of  debtor  and 
creditor  are  fitly  represented  as  interesting  themselves  in  the 
case,  and  reporting  it  to  the  common  lord  in  a  spirit  of  com- 
passion towards  the  sufferer.  Their  sympathies  are  roused 
simply  by  the  spectacle  of  excessive  severity,  without  reference 
to  the  glaring  inconsistency  of  the  wrong-doer,  of  which  they 
are  not  supposed  to  be  aware.  But  that  inconsistency  is  what 
arrests  the  attention  of  the  king.  Now  for  the  first  time  he  is 
angry,  and  he  gives  expression  to  his  wrath  in  terms  of  un- 
mitigated condemnation,  followed  up  by  a  sentence  of  unquali- 
fied rigour.  He  calls  the  offender  '  wicked,'  using  the  epithet 
not  with  reference  to  his  own  great  debt,  but  to  stigmatise  the 
mercilessness  he  had  shown  towards  his  brother  who  owed  him 
a  small  debt — a  mercilessness  to  be  reprehended  in  any  one, 
and  utterly  inexcusable  in  him,  who  had  himself  been  forgiven 
so  immensely  greater  a  sum.  And  the  sentence  pronounced  on 
this  \  wicked '  one  is,  that  having  shown  no  mercy,  he  should 
receive  none.  The  pardon  granted  is  revoked,  and  he  is 
remitted  to  the  custody  of  the  roughest,  most  ruthless,  gaolers, 
who  will  rather  take  pleasure  in  tormenting  him  than  in  miti- 
gating the  discomforts  of  his  imprisonment,  and  will  take  good 
care  that  he  do  not  get  out  till  he  have  paid  all  that  he  owed.1 

1  Most  interpreters  take  the  'tormentors'  in  this  general  sense  ■• 
gaolers  of  the  rudest  order. 


40  8         The  Parabolic    Teaching  of  Christ,   [book  ii. 

The  language  of  the  parable  here,  as  throughout,  is  strong, 
but  there  is  no  occasion  at  this  stage  for  any  suggestion  of 
exaggeration.  Intensity  of  utterance,  the  characteristic  of 
the  whole  parable,  is  discernible  in  this  part  also,  but  not  ex- 
travagance. The  words  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  king  find 
a  response  in  every  healthy  conscience.  Who  will  call  in 
question  the  appropriateness  of  the  epithet '  wicked '  ?  Must 
we  not  rather  acknowledge  the  moderation  of  judgment 
evinced  in  applying  the  term  to  the  offender  not  qua  debtor, 
but  qua  creditor  ?  It  is  not  easy  to  imagine  how  any  man 
could  amass  such  an  amount  of  debt  without  culpability 
approaching  to  wickedness.  But,  with  fine  discrimination,  the 
word  is  not  brought  in  till  the  party  characterised  has  been 
guilty  of  conduct  whose  unmitigated  iniquity  could  be  doubtful 
to  no  one  having  the  slightest  pretensions  to  moral  discernment. 
Then,  as  to  the  sentence,  it  is  doubtless  inexorably  stern,  but 
it  is  undeniably  equitable  and  just.  The  case  described  is  one 
of  those  in  which  the  public  conscience  would  feel  aggrieved 
were  a  severe  sentence  not  pronounced,  and  a  lenient  punish- 
ment would  appear  little  short  of  an  outrage. 

We  are  not  surprised,  therefore,  to  find  our  Lord  expressing 
His  deliberate  approval  of  the  sentence  pronounced  on  the  un- 
merciful servant,  and  solemnly  assuring  His  disciples  that  after 
the  like  manner  should  they  themselves  be  treated  if  they 
followed  his  bad  example.  Such  is  the  import  of  the  closing 
sentence  :  So  shall  also  My  heavenly  Father  do  unto  you,  if  ye 
forgive  not  every  one  his  brother  from  your  hearts.  Nothing 
could  be  more  explicit  than  the  declaration  here  made  that  a 
policy  of  severity  will  be  pursued  against  all  the  unforgiving. 
And  Christ's  personal  approval  of  that  policy  is  equally  pro- 
nounced. Specially  worthy  of  notice  in  this  view  is  the  de- 
signation given  to  the  Ruler  and  Judge  of  men.  One  not  in 
sympathy  with  the  rigour  of  Divine  government  might  have 
said,  So  shall  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth  do  to  you.  Not  so 
speaks  Christ  here.  He  gives  to  God,  even  in  this  sombre 
connection,  the  endearing  title  of  Father.  Not  only  so,  He  calls 
God  My  Father,  as  if  to  express  in  the  most  emphatic  manner 
His  perfect  sympathy  with  the  Divine  mind.  At  other  times 
He  called  God  your  Father,  with  reference  to  His  disciples ; 
but  here  He  takes  the  Divine  Father  from  them,  as  if  to  imply 


ch.  viii.]  The  Unmerciful  Servant.  409 

that  between  Him  and  them  so  acting  there  could  be  nothing 
in  common,  and  appropriates  Him  to  Himself,  as  if  to  say,"  I 
and  My  Father  are  one  in  this  matter."  Obviously  Jesus  has 
no  sense  of  incongruity  between  the  Fatherhood  of  God  and 
the  strange  work  of  stern  j  udgment  on  the  unmerciful.  Neither 
was  there  room  for  such  a  feeling.  Just  because  God  is  a 
Father,  and  because  His  inmost  spirit  is  love,  He  must  abhor 
a  spirit  so  utterly  alien  from  His  own.  It  is  only  what  we 
should  expect,  that  under  the  government  of  a  gracious  God 
the  spirit  of  mercilessness  should  have  judgment  without 
mercy.  Some  good  men  think  that  it  is  due  to  the  Divine 
love  that  we  should  cherish  a  hope  of  ultimate  mercy  even  for 
the  merciless  in  the  long  course  of  the  ages.  It  may  be  so, 
though  there  is  little  either  in  the  letter  or  in  the  spirit  of  this 
parable  to  encourage  such  a  hope.  On  this  dark  subject  we 
do  not  incline  to  dogmatise  so  freely  as  is  usual  on  either 
side,  but  would  be  swift  to  hear  and  slow  to  speak.  Whether 
the  '  tormentors '  and  the  imprisonment  be  ceonian  merely, 
or  strictly  everlasting,  may,  for  aught  we  know,  be  a  fair 
question  ;  but  it  is  one  we  had  rather  not  discuss,  especially  in 
connection  with  a  class  of  sinners  who  have  so  little  claim  on 
our  sympathy. 


BOOK   III. 
THE  PARABLES  OF  JUDGMENT. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  CHILDREN   IN   THE  MARKET-PLACE  | 
OR,    THE    JUDGMENT     OF    JESUS     ON    JEWISH    CONTEMPORARIES. 

THE  little  similitude  of  the  Children  in  the  Market-place  does 
not  usually  find  a  place  in  treatises  on  the  parables.  Never- 
theless it  seems  to  us  fit  and  worthy  to  stand  at  the  head  of 
the  division  on  which  we  now  enter  as  an  introduction  to  the 
study  of  those  parables  in  which  Christ  appears  as  a  Prophet, 
speaking  words  of  warning  and  of  doom  to  His  contemporaries 
in  Israel.  For  it  sets  forth  the  judgment  of  Jesus  on  that 
generation,  the  opinion  which  He  entertained  of  their  char- 
acter ;  an  opinion  from  which  it  is  easy  to  see  that  they  were 
in  a  bad  way  :  blind,  wanting  spiritual  insight, — incapable  of 
appreciating  goodness  when  it  showed  itself  among  them,  not 
knowing  the  time  of  their  merciful  visitation  ;  a  generation 
saying  now,  "  Not  this  Man,  but  the  Rabbis,"  and  likely  to  say 
ere  long,  to  their  own  hurt,  "  Not  this  Man,  but  Barabbas." 

The  whole  section  of  the  gospel  history  in  which  this  parable 
occurs  may  be  described  as  a  chapter  of  moral  criticism.  Its 
contents  are  given  in  greatest  fulness  in  the  eleventh  chapter 
of  Matthew,  wherein  we  find  Jesus  expressing  His  opinion, 
first  of  John  the  Baptist,  then  of  the  Jewish  people  of  that 
time,  and  finally  of  Himself.  Of  John  He  says  that  he  is  a 
great  prophet  of  moral  law,  yet  less  than  the  least  in  the 
kingdom  of  God  ;  the  reason  of  the  latter  part  of  the  judgment 
being  that  the  Baptist  did  not  understand  or  appreciate  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  as  a  kingdom  of  grace.  To  him  it  was 
a  kingdom  of  law,  demanding  of  men  righteousness,  not  a 
kingdom  of  mercy,  offering  itself  to  men's  acceptance  as  the 


414         The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,   [book  iil 

summum  bontim.  Therefore  Jesus  Himself  was  a  stumbling- 
block  to  him,  for  he  expected  Messiah  to  come  with  axe  and 
fan,  to  judge,  hew  down,  and  sift ;  and  lo,  He  had  come  in  the 
spirit  of  love,  patience,  and  pity.  So  he  stood  aloof  from  the 
new  movement  inaugurated  by  Jesus,  wondering  what  it  all 
might  mean  ;  a  true  man  of  God,  yet  outside  the  kingdom  as 
a  new  historical  phenomenon.  Of  Himself  Jesus  said, "  I  am 
despised  and  rejected  by  the  wise  and  understanding  ones,  and 
received  only  by  babes.  Nevertheless  those  who  despise  Me 
cannot  do  without  Me.  I  am  the  way  to  the  knowledge  of 
the  Father.  Nor  does  their  contempt  harm  Me  ;  for  though 
men  know  Me  not  nor  value  Me,  the  Divine  Father  knoweth 
Me,  and  I  know  Him,  and  Heloveth  Me,  and  hath  committed 
all  things — the  sovereignty  of  the  future — into  My  hands.  I 
can  do  without  them,  though  they  cannot  do  without  Me." 

Of  the  Jewish  people — that  is,  of  those  then  living  in  Judaea 
who  were  under  the  influence  of  the  spirit  of  the  time, 
forming  the  great  bulk  of  the  nation — Jesus  pronounced  the 
opinion  which  is  contained  in  our  parable,  which,  as  it  stands 
in  St  Matthew's  Gospel,  is  as  follows : 

Whereunto  shall  I  liken  this  generation  t  It  is  like  unto  children  sitting 
in  the  market-place  who,  calling  unto  their  fellows}  say :  We  piped 
unto  you,  and  ye  danced  not ;  we  wailed,  and  ye  mourned  not.  For 
John  came  neither  eating  nor  drinking,  and  they  say:  He  hath  a 
devil.  The  Son  of  man  came  eating  and  drinking,  and  they  say  :  Be- 
hold a  gluttonous  man,  and  a  winebibber,  a  friend  of  publicans  and 
sinners;  and  wisdom  is  justified'1  by  her  children? — Matth.  xi.  16-19. 

1  Irat'poic,  the  reading  in  T.  R.  retained  in  R.  V.  N.  B.,  &c,  have  iripo^, 
which  is  adopted  by  Teschendorf,  and  Westcott  and  Hort.  Alford  thinks 
irkpoic  came  into  texts  through  mistake  of  the  ear— a  case  of  itacism,  the 
words  being  pronounced  the  same  way.  But  of  course  this  cuts  both 
ways.  Lange  adopts  iripoit,  and  assigns  to  it  a  moral  significance  =  a 
different  set  not  in  the  mood  to  play,  representing  Jesus  and  John,  who 
were  too  earnest  to  trifle. 

a  ilucaiwOti,  the  aorist  whose  distinctive  force  is  to  be  retained  wherever 
possible.  But  we  may  regard  the  present  as  a  case  of  the  use  of  the 
gnomic  aorist,  indicating  a  law  of  the  moral  order  analogous  to  the  same 
use  of  the  aorist  to  denote  facts  belonging  to  the  physical  order,  as  in 
James  1.  II. 

8  ritvuv,  as  in  T.  R.  The  R.  V.,  Westcott  and  Hort,  and  Teschendorf 
adopt  the  reading  tpywv,  found  in  N.  B.  Alford  suggests  that  this  reading 
may  have  been  substituted  for  Ti%wvt  which  might  easily  have  arisen  from 


ch.  I.]      The  Children  in  the  Market-Place,  415 

The  parable  proper  occupies  only  a  single  sentence,  the 
remainder  of  the  passage  quoted  giving  its  application,  whence 
we  learn  that  the  opinion  expressed  by  Jesus  in  the  parable 
concerning  His  contemporaries  had  reference  to  the  reception 
they  had  accorded  to  Himself  and  to  John.  But  though  very 
short,  it  is  very  significant  It  hints  that  the  contemporaries 
of  Jesus  and  John,  in  judging  these  messengers  of  God,  judged 
themselves  ;  had  shown  themselves  to  be  children.  "  To  what 
shall  I  liken  this  generation  ? "  asked  the  Divine  Critic  of  His 
age,  and  His  reply  to  His  own  question  was:  "They  are  like 
unto  children."  In  one  respect  it  was  a  mild  judgment,  but  it 
was  also  very  ominous.  For  it  is  a  serious  thing  when  men 
are  like  children,  not  in  the  good  sense,  but  in  the  bad — not 
children,  but  childish.  A  generation  like  children  in  this  evil 
sense  is  a  generation  in  its  spiritual  dotage,  or  second  child- 1 
hood,  in  a  state  like  that  of  the  Hebrew  Christians  of  after 
days  so  pathetically  and  graphically  described  by  the  writer 
of  the  Epistle  addressed  to  them,  as,  "  become  such  as  have 
need  of  milk,  and  not  of  strong  meat."  *  When  this  state  of 
senility  is  reached  death  is  not  far  off.  This  condition  of 
spiritual  dotage  had  been  reached  by  the  generation  to  which 
our  parable  refers.  Their  senses  were  blinded  by  age  so  that 
they  were  unable  to  discern  between  good  and  evil.  They 
were  blind  to  true  wisdom  and  goodness,  and  could  not 
recognise  these  when  they  presented  themselves  to  view  under 
various  forms,  as  in  Jesus  and  John.  They  were  blind  to 
their  own  true  interest,  and  could  not  discern  the  signs  of  the 
time,  the  weather  signs  portentous  of  the  coming  storm. 
They  were  on  the  wrong  tracks,  and  had  not  the  sense  to 
allow  themselves  to  be  put  right.  There  was  no  salvation  for 
them  in  any  of  the  guidances  in  which  they  put  their  trust — 
in  Rabbinism,  in  Phariseeism,  or  in  patriotism  ;  yet  they  would 
follow  these  blind  guides,  and  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the  still 
voice  of  wisdom  behind  them,  saying,  *'  This  is  the  way,  walk 
ye  in  it."     That  such  was  the  spiritual  state  of  Israel  Jesus 

rUvwvy  by  the  change  of  *  into  *•  Readings  found  in  tf.  B.  together  are, 
on  the  grounds  so  ably  stated  by  Westcott  and  Hort  in  the  valuable  intro- 
duction to  their  edition  of  the  Greek  Testament,  always  entitled  to  serious 
consideration  ;  but  we  do  not  feel  called  upon  in  every  case,  and  as  a 
matter  of  course,  to  introduce  such  into  our  text  '  Heb.  v.  12. 


4- 1 6  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,   [book  hi. 

was  fully  aware  when  He  likened  His  generation  to  children. 
We  could  imagine  Him  using  the  comparison  for  the  express 
purpose  of  pointing  out  such  a  condition  ;  it  would  have  been 
natural  to  have  employed  it  in  this  sense  when  speaking  with 
reference  to  the  unappreciative  attitude  of  contemporaries 
towards  either  Himself  or  John  separately.  But  on  the  present 
occasion  He  thought  of  Himself  and  John  together,  and  of  the 
marked  difference  in  their  whole  manner  of  life  between  the 
two  messengers  of  God  to  that  time,  and  of  the  impartiality 
with  which  their  fellow-countrymen  had  dealt  out  to  both  an 
equal  measure  of  disesteem,  and  other  points  of  resemblance 
to  children  suggested  themselves,  for  which  He  found  a  fit 
emblem  in  the  scene  from  the  market-place  of  children  playing 
at  marriages  and  funerals.  The  figures  convey  the  idea  that  the 
men  of  that  time — the  generation  of  men  under  the  influence  of 
the  characteristic  Zeitgeist,  and  specially  the  more  religious  folk 
— the  Pharisees — were  merely  playing  at  religion.  While  He  and 
John  were  both  consumed  with  earnest  zeal  about  the  things  of 
the  kingdom,  each  striving  after  his  own  mode  to  promote  its 
interests,  they  were  only  amusing  themselves  with  pious  works. 
Then,  further,  the  similitude  suggests  that  the  parties  depicted 
were  like  children  in  the  fickleness  of  their  temper.  They 
were  changeable  in  their  humour  ;  fastidious,  difficult  to  please, 
much  given  to  peevish  complaining  and  fault-finding,  after 
the  manner  of  self-willed  children.  As  one  might  see  children 
in  the  market-place  playing  at  their  games  and  quarrelling 
with  each  other,  never  all  in  the  same  humour  at  the  same 
moment,  one  set  wishing  to  play  at  marriages  when  another 
wanted  to  play  at  funerals  ;  so  could  one  with  spiritual  vision 
see  that  childish  generation  behaving  itself  with  reference  to 
Jesus  and  John.  The  two  men  were  very  diverse  in  their 
spirit  and  mode  of  life  and  method  of  working  ;  and  it  might 
have  been  expected  that  if  either  was  disliked  the  other  would 
be  a  favourite.  But  no  ;  they  were  both  alike  unpopular. 
When  people  saw  John's  austere  garb  and  heard  him  preach 
repentance,  they  were  in  the  mood  to  wish  for  something  less 
severe.  When  they  observed  the  genial  way  of  Jesus,  how  He 
ate  and  drank  and  dressed  as  other  men,  and  heard  the  gentle, 
pitiful  words  He  addressed  to  the  sinful,  they  turned  away 
unsympathising,  deeming  that  a  sterner  mood  was  called  for. 


en.  i.]         The  Children  in  the  Market-Place.         417 

Both  the  great  ones,  full  of  love  and  originality,  sinned  against 
the  law  of  the  mean  expressed  in  such  proverbs  as  ne  quid 
nimis,  whtv  ayav,  and  so  incurred  the  penalty  of  being  blamed 
by  those,  at  all  times  the  majority,  to  whom  whatever  was  not 
characterised  by  tameness,  half-and-halfncss,  and  mediocrity 
was  an  offence. 

Such  is  the  general  drift  of  the  parable,  and  in  a  broad 
sketch  of  the  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ  it  might  not  be 
necessary  to  add  anything  more  by  way  of  interpretation. 
But  in  a  systematic  exposition  such  as  we  have  on  hand  there 
are  some  particular  points  adverted  to  by  the  commentators 
of  which  some  notice  must  be  taken.  The  questions  have  been 
discussed  :  Who  are  the  complainants  and  who  the  complained 
of?  Who  say  "  We  piped,  we  wailed  "?  and  who  are  they 
who  danced  not  and  mourned  not  ?  The  settlement  of  these 
questions  depends  on  another :  Does  Jesus,  with  wondrous 
condescension,  as  Bengel  thinks,  include  Himself  and  John 
among  the  children  ? *  If  so,  then  they  may  be  regarded  either 
as  the  complainers  or  the  complained  of,  the  former  alternative 
being  that  in  favour  with  the  older  interpreters.  According 
to  this  view  those  who  call  to  their  companions  are  Jesus  and 
John,  and  their  complaint,  a  just  one,  against  their  country- 
men is  that  they  had  not  responded  to  their  call,  and  danced 
when  they  had  piped,  or  wept  when  the  Baptist  mourned.  It 
is  in  favour  of  this  view  that  it  assigns  to  Jesus  and  John  the 
initiative,  and  puts  their  generation  in  the  position  simply  of 
not  sympathising  with  their  work,  in  accordance  with  the 
historical  state  of  the  case.  But  against  it  is  the  consideration 
that  it  ascribes  to  the  two  prophets  a  role  which  was  not  char- 
acteristic of  them,  but  which  was  eminently  characteristic  of 
the  Pharisaic  religionists  of  the  time — that  of  complaining — 
and  so  mars  the  literary  felicity  of  the  parable.  The  prophets 
had  a  good  right  to  complain  ;  but  it  was  not  their  way  to 
complain.  We  therefore  concur  in  the  opinion  held  by  many 
modern  commentators,  viz.  that  the  children  who  were  so 
unfortunate  as  never  to  be  able  to  get  other  children  to  play 
with  them  were  not  the  two  great  ones  of  the  time,  but  their 
small-souled  critics. 

1  "Jesus  non  solum  Judaeos,  sed  etiam  se  et  Joannem  diversis  modis  com- 
parat  cum  puerulis,  mirabili,  quod  ad  Jesus  attinet,  facilitate."     Gnomon. 

E  E 


420        The  Parabolic    Teaching  of  Christ,    [book.  til. 

his  disciples  joining  the  society  of  Jesus.  Pharisees,  Sadducees, 
Herodians,  were  all  in  servile  subjection  to  the  old,  the 
customary,  the  morally  commonplace  ;  and  therefore  they  all 
instinctively  agreed  to  hate  the  movement  led  by  Jesus, 
characterised  as  it  was  by  originality,  poetry,  passionate 
earnestness,  and  creative  energy  destined  to  make  many 
things  new.  All  alike  were,  under  diverse  guises,  children 
of  the  world,  and  such  wisdom  as  they  could  boast  of  was 
but  worldly  wisdom,  which  abhors  enthusiasm,  is  incapable 
of  making  allowance  for  the  faults  real  or  seeming  that  accom- 
pany it,  and  devoid  of  the  power  to  appreciate  great  characters  ; 
insomuch  that  it  could  commit  the  almost  incredibly  stupid 
mistakes  of  deeming  such  an  one  as  the  Baptist  a  madman, 
and  such  an  one  as  Jesus  a  profligate,  and  of  finally  putting 
both  to  death  as  intolerable  nuisances  of  whom  it  did  well 
to  rid  itself. 

Though  Jesus  and  John  are  not  included  among  the  children 
the  parable  is  so  constructed  as  to  exhibit  them  very  clearly 
in  their  distinctive  peculiarities,  in  the  picture  of  the  time 
This  is  effected  by  the  simple  device  of  representing  the 
children  not  merely  employed  in  play  and  quarrelling  ovei 
their  games,  which  would  have  sufficed  as  a  picture  of  the 
Jewish  people,  but  as  playing  at  marriages  and  funerals  ;  the 
former  symbolising  the  joy  of  the  company  of  Jesus  ;  the 
latter  the  sadness  of  the  Baptist's  circle.  And  thus  it  appears 
that  in  a  single  sentence  the  Divine  Artist  has  given  us  a 
photograph  of  His  age,  including  among  the  figures  of  the 
tableau,  though  not  in  the  foreground,  the  two  greatest  char- 
acters of  the  age — John  and  Himself.  We  see  in  this  picture 
a  fickle  peevish  generation  behaving  themselves  in  religion 
like  the  children  of  a  village  gathered  together  in  the  market- 
place at  the  hour  of  play  ;  not  without  a  certain  keen  interest 
in  religious  and  moral  movements,  taking  note  of  them  as 
they  made  their  appearance,  observing  their  characteristics, 
going  out  in  crowds  to  hear  and  see  the  preacher  of  repentance 
in  the  wilderness,  and  watching  with  curious  eye  the  strange, 
eccentric,  and  unconventional  behaviour  of  the  Prophet  of 
Nazareth;  fascinated  yet  repelled  by  both,  hoping  for  a 
moment  to  find  in  them  that  which  might  satisfy  the  obscure 
uncomprehended  cravings  of  their  hearts,  only  to  be  immedi. 


ch.  1.1      The  Children  in  the  Market-Place.  421 

ately  disappointed  by  traits  of  character  and  modes  of  action 
not  to  their  taste.  Behind  the  motley  group  in  the  forefront 
we  perceive  the  two  great  ones  whose  appearance  has  created 
the  stir  and  disturbance  in  the  public  mind.  One  is  attired 
in  a  garment  of  camel's  hair,  gathered  up  with  a  leathern 
girdle,  and  wears  a  sad,  austere  countenance,  as  of  one  who 
feels  it  to  be  his  vocation  to  be  a  standing  protest  against 
the  iniquities  of  an  evil  time.  The  other  wears  no  external 
badge  of  isolation  or  singularity,  and  in  His  face  is  a  strange 
blending  of  sadness  and  gladness.  All  that  His  companion 
knows  of  the  world's  evil  is  known  to  Him,  and  is  a  constant 
burden  to  His  spirit,  but  He  knows  also  of  a  cure  for  it,  and 
the  predominant  expression  of  His  countenance  is  one  of 
hope  and  joy  and  enthusiastic  devotion  to  a  Saviour's  calling. 
These  two  are  the  rudiments  of  a  new  era.  All  else  in  Judaea 
is  of  the  old  era  and  doomed  to  perish,  too  hopelessly  degen 
erate  to  be  capable  of  salvation,  too  blind  to  know  the  time 
of  its  gracious  visitation,  proved  to  be  incurably  bad  by  its 
treatment  of  those  who  could  have  led  it  in  the  way  of  peace. 
"All  else,"  we  have  said,  not  forgetful  that  in  the  worst 
of  times  there  are  always  some  exceptions  to  the  general 
corruption.  Such  there  were  in  Judaea  in  the  time  of  Christ 
— contemporaries  of  the  generation  animadverted  on  in  the 
parable,  but  not  belonging  to  it ;  children  of  wisdom,  though 
babes  in  respect  of  Rabbinic  lore,  and  of  no  account  with  the 
sages  of  the  age.  To  these,  as  to  the  tribunal  of  true  wisdom, 
Jesus  appealed  from  the  harsh,  unsympathetic  judgment  of 
the  worldly  wise.  The  Son  of  man  came  eating  and  drinking, 
and  they  said,  Behold  a  gluttonous  man  and  a  winebibber, 
a  friend  of  publicans  and  sinners,  and  the  quiet  reply  to  such 
savage  censure  by  the  object  of  it  was,  Wisdom  is  justified 
by  her  children.  The  way  in  which  the  reflection  is  intro- 
duced has  all  the  effect  of  humour.  It  is  connected  with 
the  reference  to  the  slanders  of  a  prejudiced  public  by  /cat, 
'and,'  conveying  the  idea  that  the  two  things  are  wont  to 
go  together  ;  the  censure  of  the  blind  and  the  approbation  of 
the  wise :  "  They  say  such  things  of  John  and  Me,  and  of 
course  we  are  justified  by  true  wisdom."  The  censure  of 
folly  is  the  negative  test  of  goodness,  the  praise  of  wisdom  is 
the  positive ;  where  the  one  is  the  other  is  to  be  looked  for. 


422         The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  in. 

Thus  viewed,  the  reflection  with  which  the  parable  concludes 
is  the  statement  of  a  moral  axiom,  and  as  such  is  properly 
rendered, "  Wisdom  is  justified,"  though  the  tense  is  the  aorist. 
Not  that  it  would  be  difficult  to  put  a  good  sense  on  the 
sentence  viewed  as  a  statement  of  historical  fact  with  reference 
to  Jesus  and  John.  So  taken  it  would  suggest  this  train 
of  thought :  John  came  and  was  evil  entreated ;  Jesus  came 
and  was  likewise  evil  entreated.  Both  were  rejected  by  their 
generation,  though  for  superficially  opposite  reasons ;  yet  in 
the  case  of  both  wisdom  was  justified  of  her  children.  The 
wisdom  of  God,  the  Sender  of  the  two  badly-received  prophets 
and  the  wisdom  of  the  sent  were  recognised  by  a  small  minority 
in  an  evil  time,  by  those,  viz.  who  were  themselves  the  children 
of  wisdom.  But  it  is  better  to  take  the  aorist,  ISucaiw^,  as 
the  gnomic  aorist,  expressing,  in  the  form  of  an  historical 
fact,  that  which  belongs  to  the  usual  course  of  things. 

We  are  shut  up  to  this  interpretation  of  the  tense  if 
we  adopt  the  reading  '  works '  (TtyvZv)  instead  of  '  children ' 
(t4kvq)v).  Then  the  meaning  will  be :  Men  blame,  but  the 
result  justifies  those  blamed  ;  the  issue  will  show  that  both 
John  and  I  were  in  our  right,  both  in  different  ways  inspired 
by  wisdom.  Historical  in  form,  the  statement  is  in  reality 
a  prophecy.  So  taken,  the  saying  contains  an  important 
truth  often  verified  in  history,  that  proscribed  causes  in  the 
long  run  are  justified  by  their  effects,  and  obtain  general 
recognition  as  having  their  origin,  not  in  folly,  but  in  wisdom. 
That  Christ  should  make  such  an  appeal  to  the  future  is 
nowise  unlikely,  only  it  may  be  doubted  whether  this  was 
all  He  had  in  view.  It  is  probable  He  had  the  present  and 
even  the  past  in  His  thoughts  when  He  uttered  this  pregnant 
saying,  and  it  is  not  difficult  to  give  such  a  wide  sense  to 
'  works '  as  to  cover  such  a  reference,  and  indeed  make  the 
two  readings  practically  coincide.  Among  the  works  of 
wisdom  we  may  reckon  the  children  of  wisdom,  those  who 
possess  spiritual  insight  into  the  nature  of  moral  phenomena. 
These  see  at  the  beginning  what  all  see  at  the  end — that 
movements  which  give  rise  to  criticism  are  of  God,  and  by 
their  insight  those  movements  are  justified.  But  if  we  may 
reckon  among  the  works  of  wisdom  the  few  who  at  an  early 
stage  detect  the  character  of  spiritual  movements,  a  fortiori 


ch.  i.]      The  Children  in  the  Market-Place.  423 

we  may  reckon  in  the  same  category  the  chief  agents  in  those 
movements  whose  conduct  is  the  principal  subject  of  criticism. 
And  confining  our  view  to  them  we  may  say :  "  Wisdom  is 
justified  by  her  works," — meaning,  wisdom  is  justified  in  all 
her  diverse  ways  of  working ;  in  the  two  instances  in  question, 
in  particular. 

Thus  understood,  the  saying  is  demonstrably  true.  Wisdom 
was  indeed  justified  in  the  diverse  modes  of  life  and  methods 
of  work  characteristic  of  Jesus  and  John  respectively.  John 
came  neither  eating  nor  drinking,  and  inculcating  an  ascetic 
habit ;  Jesus  came  both  eating  and  drinking,  and  initiating 
His  disciples  into  a  life  of  liberty  and  joy ;  and  wisdom 
revealed  itself  in  both — God's  wisdom  in  sending  them  such 
as  they  were,  their  wisdom  in  being  what  God  meant  them 
to  be.  Both  had  one  end,  and  were  devoted  to  that  end,  but 
their  manner  of  life  and  action  were  very  diverse ;  yet  both 
were  legitimate  and  wise,  because  they  were  adapted  to  the 
gifts,  the  opportunities,  and  the  tasks  of  each  respectively. 
Wisdom  dictates  that  means  correspond  to  ends,  and  that 
men  be  like  their  work,  and  this  law  of  congruity  was  com- 
plied with  in  the  case  of  Jesus  and  John.  John  standing  at 
the  threshold  of  the  new  era  of  grace  was  yet  a  man  of  the 
old  era,  and  his  vocation  was  that  of  a  Hebrew  prophet,  viz. 
to  show  the  people  their  transgressions.  He  was  indeed  the 
last  of  the  prophets,  and  the  harbinger  of  the  new  era,  but 
that  function  demanded  the  same  type  of  man.  The  work 
of  a  forerunner  of  Messiah  involved  rough  tasks,  and  needed 
a  stern  will.  He  had  to  prepare  the  way  of  the  Lord,  levelling 
the  hills  of  pride,  rousing  dormant  consciences,  and  so  pre- 
paring men  for  receiving  the  Redeemer  when  He  came  in 
the  fulness  of  grace.  It  became  one  having  such  a  vocation 
to  live  austerely,  and  by  the  very  exaggerations  of  his  self- 
denial  to  be  a  living  protest  against  all  forms  of  sensualism. 
His  very  dress  served  his  vocation,  giving  emphasis  to  his 
ministry  of  repentance,  speaking  to  the  eye  of  the  people, 
and  telling  them  that  this  was  another  Elijah,  a  representative 
of  moral  law  isolated  from  them,  raised  above  them,  and  from 
Sinai's  peak  thundering  down  a  stern  "  Thou  shalt  not " 
against  the  vice  of  the  world  below.  The  garment  of  camel's 
hair  girt  with  a  leathern  girdle  was  thus  a  most  legitimate 


424  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  hi. 

piece  of  ritualism.  It  is  very  easy  to  criticise  this  man,  and 
point  out  faults.  His  austerity  is  excessive,  his  aspect  is 
grotesque,  his  speech  uncourtly,  his  whole  way  so  eccentric, 
that  men,  at  a  loss  what  to  think  of  him,  might  very  excus- 
ably solve  the  problem  by  the  hypothesis  of  demoniacal 
possession.  Nevertheless  John,  wanting  these  peculiarities — 
call  them  faults  if  you  will — would  not  have  done  his  work 
so  well.  They  were  at  least  proofs  of  his  utter  sincerity ; 
proofs  that  he  was  a  man  possessed,  not  indeed,  as  the  critics 
imagined,  with  an  evil  spirit,  but  with  the  sublime  spirit  of 
righteousness ;  so  utterly  possessed  by  the  noble  passion  for 
right  as  to  disturb  the  balance  and  mar  the  symmetry  of  his 
character,  and  make  him  appear,  to  a  superficial  view,  a  one- 
sided, extreme,  singular,  even  absurd  man,  unendurable  except 
to  those  who  sympathised  with  his  work,  and  understood  its 
requirements. 

The  same  law  of  congruity  made  it  meet  that  Jesus  should 
be  as  like  other  men  as  possible  within  the  limits  of  the 
innocent ;  for  thus  only  could  He  get  close  to  them  and  win 
His  way  into  their  hearts  with  His  gospel  of  mercy.  He  did 
well  to  come  eating  and  drinking.  Not  eating  and  drinking 
riotously  did  He  come,  as  He  was  slanderously  reported  to 
have  done.  His  accommodations  to  existing  customs  sprang 
from  love,  not  from  laxity,  and  were  the  outward  symbol  of 
that  sympathetic  spirit  which  led  Him  to  call  Himself  Son 
of  man ;  and,  having  this  end,  they  were  accommodations 
in  accordance  with  wisdom.  The  life  of  Jesus  suited  His 
vocation  as  one  sent  to  preach  a  gospel  to  the  poor,  the  fallen, 
the  miserable ;  for  it  helped  Him  to  win  the  confidence  of 
those  whom  He  sought  to  benefit.  It  becomes  the  Sanctifier 
to  be  in  all  possible  respects  like  those  whom  he  would 
sanctify ;  the  more  points  of  contact  the  better.  This  is  the 
key  to  many  features  in  Christ's  conduct,  and  especially  to 
that  part  of  His  public  conduct  which  was  so  much  blamed 
— His  intercourse  with  the  tax-gatherers,  and  the  morally 
suspicious  or  disreputable  class  with  whom  they  were  asso- 
ciated. In  that  instance  wisdom  was  justified  by  Christ's 
own  lips  in  those  beautiful  apologies  for  loving  the  sinful  which 
we  had  occasion  to  expound  in  studying  the  parables  of 
grace.     And  wisdom  was  further  justified  by  her  works — by 


ch.  i.]       The  Children  in  the  Market-Place.  425 

the  actual  results.  For  Christ's  open,  genial  bearing  did  win 
the  confidence  of  many  social  outcasts ;  and  the  faith  thus 
inspired  exercised  a  redeeming  influence  upon  their  spirit, 
and  led  them  to  peace  and  purity.  Wisdom  was  justified  by 
children  of  folly  transformed  into  children  of  wisdom,  and  as 
time  went  on,  and  the  new  movement  unfolded  itself,  and  its 
tendencies  were  revealed  by  its  effects,  the  vindication  grew 
more  and  more  complete. 

If  the  critics  of  Jesus  had  foreseen  all  that  was  to  come  out 
of  His  work  they  might  possibly  have  abstained  from  fault- 
finding; for  the  world  respects  results,  and  recognises  that 
which  by  these  has  fully  vindicated  its  right  to  exist.  But 
it  is  the  misfortune  of  worldly  wisdom  that  it  has  exclusive 
regard  to  results,  and  at  the  same  time  wants  the  prophetic 
prescience  that  can  divine  what  these  will  be,  and  so  is  liable 
to  be  misled  by  present  appearances  into  false  and  injurious 
judgments.  In  both  respects  it  differs  from  true  wisdom,  which 
is  not  guided  in  its  judgment  solely  by  results  seen  of 
foreseen,  but  looks  into  the  heart  of  things,  and  when  it  can 
recognise  in  conduct  the  expression  of  sincere  conviction,  the 
forth-putting  of  Divine  force,  does  homage  thereto  irrespec- 
tive of  consequences.  In  this  spirit  the  truly  wise  judge  others; 
in  this  spirit  they  act  themselves.  They  show  their  wisdom 
not  by  calculating  consequences,  but  by  being  faithful  in  word 
and  deed  to  the  best  impulses  within  them.  So  they  play 
the  hero ;  while  worldly  wisdom,  in  its  anxiety  to  please  all, 
to  obviate  immediate  difficulties,  to  gain  temporary  advantages, 
stifles  conviction,  chills  enthusiasm,  and  cuts  itself  off  from 
the  possibility  of  a  heroic  career  permanently  influential.  But 
again,  true  wisdom  has  clear  insight  into  the  ultimate  con- 
sequences of  conduct.  It  has  confidence  in  the  moral  order 
of  the  world,  and  knows  that  the  final  issues  of  all  right 
action  must  be  good.  Worldly  wisdom,  in  its  blindness,  can 
only  infer  from  ascertained  effects  the  quality  of  the  cause. 
Genuine  wisdom,  from  insight  into  the  quality  of  the  cause, 
can  predict  the  nature  of  the  effects.  The  one  can  only 
judge  of  the  tree  by  its  fruit ;  the  other  can  judge  of  the 
fruit  by  the  tree. 

The  people  of  Judaea,  unhappily  for  themselves,  did  not 
even  possess  the  former  and  easier  of  these  faculties  of  moral 


42,6        The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  hi. 

judgment.  They  persisted  in  entertaining  a  poor  opinion 
of  Jesus  and  His  work  even  after  it  had  attained  to  the 
measure  of  development  manifested  in  the  Apostolic  Church. 
They  were  still  unconvinced  of  their  own  sin,  and  of  Christ's 
righteousness.  And  so  there  remained  for  them  nothing  but 
a  fearful  prospect  of  the  wrath  to  the  uttermost  that  came 
upon  them  in  the  first  Christian  century,  from  which  Jesus 
and  John  would  gladly  have  saved  them. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  BARREN  FIG-TREE; 

0*,   THE    WITHDRAWAL    OF    ISRAEL'S   PRIVILEGE  IN   FAVOUR  OF  THI 

GENTILES     FORESHADOWED. 

JESUS  spake  this  parable : 

A  certain  man  had  a  fig-tree  planted  in  his  vineyard ;  and  he  came  reek- 
ing fruit  on  it,  and  found  not  any.  And  he  said  unto  the  vinedresser. 
Behold,  these  three  years  I  come  seeking  fruit  on  this  fig-tree,  and  I 
find  it  not :  cut  it  down  ;  why  doth  it  also  '  make  the  land  useless  t  * 
And  he  answering  saith  unto  him,  Lord,  let  it  alone  this  year  also, 
till  I  shall  dig  about  it,  and  dung  it,  and  if  it  bear  fruit  next  year,* 
well;  but  if  not,  thou  shall  cut  it  down. — Luke  xiii.  6—9. 

If  it  be  assumed  that  the  conception  and  delivery  of  this 
parabolic   speech   sprang   out   of    the    incidents    previously 

1  The  omission  of  this  word  in  the  A.  V.  is  a  grave  fault,  as  it  is  essential 
to  the  meaning.     The  R.  V.  corrects  the  error. 

8  Karapyii.  The  rendering  '  cumbereth '  in  A.  V.  retained  in  R.  V.  is 
objectionable  as  too  vague,  not  to  mention  that  the  verb  cumber  is  used 
in  another  place  of  the  same  Gospel  for  a  wholly  different  Greek  word 
(Luke  x.  40).  The  same  word  should  certainly  not  be  used  in  both 
places.    The  idea  intended  by  carapyil  seems  to  be  that  the  land  is  rendered 

<$pyo£  =  atpy&Q. 

8  In  the  T  R.  c/c  t6  piWov  comes  after  1/  ii  my*-  The  rendering 
'henceforth'  in  the  R.  V.,  replacing  the  'after  that '  of  the  A.  V.,  is  too 
general.  fr«c  is  understood  after  ptWov.  So  Bengel,  Meyer,  and  Hof- 
mann.  Also  Dr.  Field,  who,  criticising  the  R.  V.,  remarks  :  "  Here  hot 
occurs  in  the  preceding  verse,  but  even  without  that  the  idiom  is  well  es- 
tablished. Plutarch  frequently  uses  it  of  magistrates  designate  "  ( •  Otiura 
Norvicense,'  Part  III).  The  correct  rendering  of  the  phrase  was  given 
early  in  last  century  by  the  Cambridge  scholar,  Jeremiah  Markland,  to 
whom  reference  is  made  by  Dr.  Field,  and  also  by  Bos  in  'Ellipse* 
Grsecae'  under  the  word  inc. 


428         The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,  [book  hi 

narrated,  its  judicial  character  is  self-evident.  In  that  case  the 
obvious  purpose  of  the  parable  is  to  enforce  the  warning: 
"  Except  ye  repent,  ye  shall  all  likewise  perish  ;  "  to  intimate, 
that  is  to  say,  that  the  judgment  of  the  Jewish  nation  was 
impending.  But  even  if,  as  is  most  likely,  the  connection 
between  the  parable  and  what  goes  before  is  subjective  only, 
in  the  mind  of  the  writer,  rather  than  in  the  actual  course  of 
events,  the  sombre  and  threatening  nature  of  the  utterance  is 
still  very  apparent.  The  unfruitful  tree,  which  we  may  safely 
assume  to  be  Israel,  is  about  to  be  cut  down.  It  is  on  its  last 
trial,  the  issue  of  which,  judging  from  the  past,  is  far  from 
hopeful.  There  is,  indeed,  mercy  in  the  petition  that  it  may 
have  a  last  trial — another  year  of  grace.  This  circumstance, 
however,  throws  no  shadow  of  doubt  on  the  judicial  character 
of  the  parable ;  or,  if  it  does,  then  we  must  conclude  that  it  is 
a  mistake  to  speak  of  a  separate  class  of  parables  of  judgment. 
For  none  of  our  Lord's  parabolic  sayings  are  so  purely  judicial 
as  to  show  no  trace  of  the  grace  that  dwelt  in  Him.  The  grace 
is  visible  enough  here  in  the  intercession  of  the  vinedresser. 
Nevertheless,  judgment  preponderates.  The  very  intercession 
is  ominous.  The  vinedresser  shows  His  mercifulness  by 
deprecating  immediate  cutting  down,  but  the  careful  specifi- 
cation of  conditions,  and  the  limitation  of  the  period  within 
which  experiments  are  to  be  made,  intimate  that  peril  is 
imminent. 

The  object  of  judgment,  already  hinted  at,  is  Israel — thai 
would  be  so  obvious  to  the  hearers  that  it  was  quite  un- 
necessary to  explain  it ;  and  what  is  threatened  is  exclusion 
from  the  kingdom  of  God,  forfeiture  of  privilege  as  the  elect 
people.  As  in  most  parables  belonging  to  the  present  group, 
the  threatening  against  Israel  is  accompanied  by  hints  at  the 
replacing  of  the  chosen  people  by  other  recipients  of  Divine 
favour.  The  most  obvious  hint  is  contained  in  the  words  : 
Why  also  rendereth  it  the  land  useless  ?  The  owner  regards 
the  occupation  of  the  land  by  an  unproductive  tree  as  a  serious 
evil,  and  one  reason  of  his  desire  to  cut  down  the  tree  is  that 
another  fertile  tree  may  be  planted  in  its  room.  It  thus 
appears  that  in  one  aspect  a  parable  of  judgment,  the  present 
parable, — and  a  similar  remark  may  be  made  with  reference 
to  all  belonging  to  the  same  group, — is  in  another  aspect  a 


ch.  ii.]  The  Barren  Fig-Tree,  429 

parable  of  grace.  A  parable  of  judgment  as  towards  Israel, 
it  is  a  parable  of  grace  as  towards  the  Gentiles,  intimating  God's 
purpose  to  put  them  in  the  place  of  an  unfruitful  elect  people. 

In  this  fact,  doubtless,  lay  the  attraction  of  this  parable  for 
the  third  Evangelist,  who  has  alone  recorded  it.  The  doom 
of  Israel  by  itself  was  an  unpleasant  subject  of  contemplation 
to  a  Christian  mind  ;  and  had  there  been  nothing  but  that 
to  be  found  in  the  parable,  Luke  might  have  kept  it  out  of 
his  gospel.  But  his  quick  Pauline  eye  detected  much  more 
in  it  than  that.  He  found  there,  to  his  comfort,  a  hint  that 
Israel's  doom  was  to  be  the  opportunity  of  the  Gentiles ;  that 
the  sunset  of  Israel's  day  of  grace  was  to  be  the  sunrise  of  a 
day  of  grace  for  the  outside  nations. 

The  parable  before  us  is  one  of  those  parts  of  our  Lord's 
teaching  in  which  is  latent  Pauline  universalism.  This  element 
is  its  specialty,  and  only  when  we  keep  it  steadily  in  view  can 
we  do  full  justice  to  all  the  features  of  the  representation,  or 
enter  sympathetically  into  the  spirit  of  either  the  speaker  or 
the  narrator.  We  understand  the  story  of  the  unfruitful  fig- 
tree  only  when  we  see  in  it  an  anticipation  of  Paul's  apologetic 
for  his  Gentile  Gospel,  as  apparently  liable  to  the  objection  of 
setting  aside  the  election  of  Israel,  in  the  ninth,  tenth,  and 
eleventh  chapters  of  his  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  So  at  least 
we  read  the  story,  and  we  hope  to  justify  the  reading  by  the 
exposition  following. 

The  lesson  of  the  parable  then  being,  on  our  view,  not 
merely  the  doom  of  Israel,  but  that  doom  as  accompanied  by 
the  in-bringing  of  the  Gentiles,  let  us  see  how  the  details  fit 
into  the  hypothesis. 

The  first  point  claiming  attention  is  the  subject  of  the  para- 
bolic narration — a  fig- tree  in  a  vineyard.  That  requires  explan- 
ation. A  fig-tree  is  not  the  thing  we  look  for  in  a  vineyard. 
The  peculiarity  has  not  escaped  the  notice  of  commentators, 
and  they  have  tried  to  account  for  it.  Some  point  out  that  a 
fig-tree  does  not  conflict  with  the  prohibition  in  Deut.  xxii.  9 
— Thou  shalt  not  sozv  thy  vineyard  with  divers  seeds,  lest  the 
fruit  of  thy  seed  which  thou  hast  sown,  and  the  fruit  of  thy 
vineyard,  be  defiled,  inasmuch  as  trees  are  not  referred  to  in 
the  passage.1     Others  conversant  with  the  present  practice  in 

1  So  Meyer. 


430         The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,   [book.  hi. 

the  East  tell  us  that  a  fig-tree  in  a  vineyard  is  by  no  means 
an  uncommon  phenomenon.1  One  who  writes  with  authority 
on  all  that  relates  to  the  Natural  History  of  the  Bible,  states 
that  the  corners  and  irregular  pieces  of  ground  in  a  vineyard 
are  generally  occupied  by  a  fig-tree.8  Such  observations 
prove  that  a  fig-tree  in  a  vineyard  is  not  contrary  either  to 
law  or  to  usage  ;  but  they  do  not  explain  why  our  Lord 
selected  a  fig-tree  instead  of  a  vine,  as  we  should  have 
expected,  to  be  the  vehicle  of  instruction.  However  legal 
or  usual  the  presence  of  a  fig-tree  in  a  vineyard  may  be,  it  is 
not,  as  in  the  case  of  a  vine,  a  matter  of  course,  and  Christ 
must  have  had  a  reason  for  introducing  it,  and  the  reason  can 
only  be  found  in  the  didactic  significance  of  the  emblem. 
What,  then,  was  the  reason  ?  On  our  view  of  the  drift  of 
the  parable  it  is  not  difficult  to  answer  the  question.  The 
fig-tree  is  chosen  to  represent  Israel  as  a  tacit  yet  effective 
protest  against  the  notion  of  her  possessing  a  prescriptive  right 
to  occupy  in  perpetuity  the  place  she  held  in  God's  favour. 
The  supposition  is  directed  against  the  pride  and  self-import- 
ance of  an  elect  race,  prone  to  think  that  Israel  and  God's 
kingdom  were  synonymous,  or  as  intimately  and  essentially 
related  to  each  other  as  are  vineyard  and  vine.  To  have  used 
the  vine  as  an  emblem  of  Israel  might  have  seemed  to  concede 
this  claim,  but  by  selecting  the  fig-tree  as  an  emblem  Christ 
said  to  his  countrymen  in  effect,  "Ye  have  no  natural  or 
necessary  place  in  the  sphere  within  which  God's  grace  mani- 
fests itself,  like  a  vine  in  a  vineyard,  without  which  the  vine- 
yard can  hardly  be  conceived :  Ye  are  but  a  fig-tree  in  the 
vineyard,  legitimately,  suitably  enough  there,  yet  there  by 
accident,  or  by  free  choice  of  the  owner,  and  there  only  so  long 
as  ye  serve  the  purpose  for  which  he  put  you  there."  Much 
the  same  thing  indeed  could  be  said  even  of  a  vine.     For 

1  Vide  Stanley, '  Sinai  and  Palestine,'  p.  421. 

•  Tristram,  '  The  Natural  History  of  the  Bible,' p.  352.  Godet  remarks 
that  the  soil  of  a  vineyard  is  very  good  for  fruit-trees,  as  if  the  point  of 
the  parable  were  to  teach  that  God  had  done  all  for  Israel  that  He  could 
(so  Arnot).  This  is  not  the  moral  lesson  of  the  parable,  and  the  observ- 
ation concerning  the  goodness  of  the  soil,  besides  being  irrelevant  to  the 
didactic  scope,  leaves  the  selection  of  a  fig-tree  as  emblem  unexplained. 
The  land  was  good  for  any  fruit-tree;  why  then  name  this  one  in 
particular  ? 


ch.  n.1  The  Barren  Fig-Tree.  431 

while  vines  are  necessary  to  the  idea  of  a  vineyard,  this  01 
that  particular  vine  is  not,  and  the  introduction  of  any  in- 
dividual plant  is  a  matter  of  choice,  and  its  continuance 
depends  on  its  fruit-bearing  qualities  ;  for  no  owner  of  a  vine- 
yard recognises  a  prescriptive  right  in  a  vine  to  remain  in  its 
place  even  when  it  has  proved  unfruitful.  But  what  may  be 
said  even  of  a  vine  may  be  said  a  fortiori  of  a  fig-tree,  and  to 
select  a  fig-tree  as  the  emblem  of  Israel  was  a  way  of  pro- 
voking reflections  of  this  kind  in  a  people  not  by  any  means 
inclined  thereto.  The  Jewish  people  would  not  of  their  own 
accord  think  of  themselves  as  a  fig-tree  in  a  vineyard.  They 
would  rather  think  of  themselves  as  God's  vine,  which  He 
brought  from  Egypt  and  planted  in  the  goodly  land  of 
promise ;  and  they  would  flatter  themselves  that  as  God  had 
taken  so  much  pains  to  elect  them,  and  as  they  had  been  so 
long  in  possession,  they  would  continue  in  the  vineyard  for 
ever.  It  was  because  the  Jews  cherished  such  thoughts  that 
necessity  was  laid  on  Paul  to  reconcile  his  Gentile  Gospel,  not 
only  with  ethical  interests  and  with  the  claims  of  the  Mosaic 
law,  but  with  the  election  of  Israel.  They  had  the  same 
thoughts  in  our  Lord's  time,  and  it  was  to  provide  an  antidote 
to  such  self-deception  and  self-flattery  that  He  called  Israel  a 
fig-tree  in  a  vineyard  ;  so  by  a  single  word  accomplishing  the 
same  end  which  Paul  sought  to  serve  by  an  elaborate  process 
of  argument,  designed  to  show  that  in  election  God  is  free, 
that  therefore  it  confers  no  prescriptive  rights,  that  what  God 
freely  began  He  may  freely  end,  so  far  as  human  claims  are 
concerned  ;  and  that  Israel,  so  far  from  having  any  prescriptive 
right,  had  justly  forfeited  her  privilege  as  the  elect  people  by 
her  utter  failure  to  realise  the  Divine  purpose  in  her  election.1 
All  this  is  hinted  by  one  short  parable,  and  even  by  the 
single  word  fig-tree  ;  2  all  this,  and  yet  more,  for  the  comparison 
of  Israel  to  a  fig-tree  suggests  forcibly  the  thought  that  God's 
vineyard  is  a  much  more  comprehensive  category  than  the 
chosen  race.  Doubtless  it  was  intended  to  suggest  this 
thought,  and  when  we  keep  this  fact  in  view  we  can  have  no 

1  Such  is  the  scope  of  Rom.  ix.,  x.  Chap.  xi.  qualifies  the  severity  of 
the  previous  argument  by  showing  that  the  cancelling  of  Israel's  election 
is  not  absolute  or  final 

8  Bengel  had  a  glimpse  of  this,  as  appears  from  his  suggestive  remark: 
ffwjjv,  arburem  cui  per  se  nil  loci  est  in  vinea. 


43  4         The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,  [book  ni, 

difficulty  in  answering  the  question :  If  Israel  be  the  fig-tree, 
what  is  the  vineyard  ?  The  question  has  puzzled  commen- 
tators and  received  various  and  even  curious  answers.  Some 
say  the  vineyard  in  this  instance  must  mean  the  world.1  One 
expositor,  unable  to  accept  this  view,  and  at  a  loss  to  suggest 
any  other,  on  the  assumption  that  the  fig-tree  denotes  Israel, 
in  despair  makes  the  tree  represent  individual  Israelites,  the 
vineyard  being  Israel  collectively.2  The  truth  is,  that  the  vine- 
yard is  the  kingdom  of  God,  the  sphere  within  which  God 
manifests  Himself  in  grace ;  always  in  idea  and  Divine  pur- 
pose distinguishable  from  and  wider  than  the  Jewish  people, 
and  now  on  the  eve  of  becoming  a  much  more  comprehensive 
thing  in  reality  through  the  calling  of  the  Gentiles,3  after 
which  it  would  become  apparent  to  all  that  the  place  of  Israel 
in  the  kingdom  was  as  that  of  a  fig-tree  in  the  corner  of  a  vine- 
yard, small  at  the  best,  and  by  no  means  secure. 

By  no  means  secure,  for  the  fig-tree  has  been  unfruitful: 
that  is  the  outstanding  fact  in  its  history.  "  Behold,  these 
three  years  I  come  seeking  fruit  on  this  tree,  and  find  not 
any."  The  three  years  signify  the  time  sufficient  for  ascer- 
taining the  tree's  fruit-bearing  qualities,  after  the  lapse  of  which 
one  may  infer  incurable  barrenness.4  Possibly,  as  has  been 
suggested,  the  number  of  years  has  been  fixed  with  reference 
to  the  precept  in  the  law  directing  that  the  fruit  of  young 
trees  should  for  three  years  not  be  eaten,  but  be  reckoned 
uncircumcised.6  There  is  little  reason  to  believe  that  Jesus 
meant  to  refer  to  the  years  of  His  own  personal  ministry, 
though  this  view,  in  favour  with  many,  certainly  helps  to 
remove  the  appearance  of  harshness  in  limiting  the  trial  to 
so  short  a  period,  as  in  that  case  the  meaning  would  be,  that 
during  a  time  of  special  means  of  grace  Israel  should  have 
been  exceptionally  fruitful.  Similar  service  is  rendered  by 
the  suggestion  that  the  three  years  represent  the  three  epochs 
of  the  judges,  the  kings,  and  the  high  priests ;  each  year  in 
the  parable  signifying  a  period   of  many  centuries  in  the 

1  So  Euthymius  Zig.  Trench,  Oostersee,  Arnot. 

•  Stier  in  '  Die  Reden  Jesu.' 

»  So  Hofmann  and  GoebeL     The  vineyard,  says   Hofmann,  is  **  di« 
Anstalt  des  Heils.* 

*  So  Godeu  *  Leviticus  xix.  23.    So  Hofmann* 


ch.  ii.]  The  Barren  Fig-Tree,  433 

history.  Certainly  the  time  of  trial  does  seem  short,  and  in 
so  far  conveys  an  unfavourable  impression  as  to  God's  patience 
towards  Israel,  not  justified  by  the  actual  facts  ;  for  Jehovah 
had  borne  long  with  the  unfruitfulness  of  His  chosen  people. 
But  the  time  is  made  short  because  the  purpose  is  not  to 
emphasise  the  Divine  patience,  but  to  give  prominence  to  the 
thought  that  fruit  is  the  thing  looked  for,  the  reason  of  the 
fig-tree's  presence  in  the  vineyard.  It  belonged  to  the  didactic 
drift  of  the  parable  to  emphasise  this  point,  for  it  tended  to 
justify  the  threatened  excision  of  Israel.  Hence  is  explained 
the  limitation  of  the  period  of  trial  to  the  barely  sufficient 
number  of  years.  The  same  bias  comes  out  in  the  use  of  the 
present  ip\o\mi,  in  speaking  of  the  owner's  quest  for  fruit 
"  I  am  coming,"  he  says :  he  is  continually  on  the  outlook  for 
fruit,  and  on  its  becoming  apparent  to  him  that  a  particular 
tree  is  not  likely  to  be  fruit-bearing,  he  has  but  one  thought 
concerning  it,  viz.  to  cut  it  down  or  remove  it,  and  plant 
another  in  its  place.  The  point  meant  to  be  insisted  on 
obviously  is  not  the  patience  of  God,  but  His  impatience 
with  a  spiritually  unfruitful  people,  even  though  it  were  an 
elect  people.  Christ  would  teach  His  countrymen,  presuming 
on  their  privilege,  that  election  was  only  a  means  to  an  end, 
and  that  if  the  end  were  not  attained  it  would  be  sternly 
cancelled. 

The  restriction  of  the  intercession  of  the  vinedresser  for  a 
prolongation  of  the  experiment  to  a  single  year  indicates 
Christ's  own  sympathy  with  this  Divine  rigour.  He  is  the 
vinedresser,  and  His  ministry  of  grace  and  truth  is  the  means 
whereby  it  is  faintly  hoped  Israel  may  yet,  at  the  eleventh 
hour,  be  made  spiritually  fruitful.  But,  full  of  grace  though 
He  be,  He  neither  expects  nor  desires  an  indefinite  extension 
of  Israel's  day  of  grace.  He  knows  that  though  God  is  long- 
suffering,  yet  His  patience,  as  exhibited  in  the  history  of  His 
dealings  with  men,  is  exhaustible;  and  that  in  Israel's  case 
it  is  now  all  but  worn  out.  And  He  sympathises  with  the 
Divine  impatience  with  chronic  and  incurable  sterility.  For 
though  He  preaches  with  enthusiasm  a  gospel  of  grace,  He 
does  so  with  the  aim  of  producing  in  the  recipients  of  the 
good  tidings  holiness,  and  in  the  conviction  that  belief  in  the 
gospel  is  the  most  efficient  cause  of  holiness.     A  kingdom 

F  F 


434         2T5J*  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,  [book  iil 

of  God  must  be  a  kingdom  of  righteousness,  and  if  Jesus 
presented  it  to  view  as  a  kingdom  of  grace,  it  was  because 
He  believed  that  was  the  most  direct  way  of  reaching  the. 
ideal.  It  was  made  a  kingdom  of  grace  to  begin  with,  that 
it  might  become  a  kingdom  of  righteousness  to  end  with. 
In  this  respect  there  is  absolute  agreement  between  Christ 
and  Paul.  The  Herald  of  the  kingdom,  not  less  energetically 
than  the  apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  repudiates  the  idea  that 
men  might  sin  with  impunity  because  grace  abounded.  The 
intercession  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  vinedresser  is  a  solemn 
act  of  repudiation,  similar  in  import  to  Paul's  protest  in  the 
sixth  chapter  of  his  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  "Let  it  alone 
this  year  also,  till  I  shall  dig  about  it,  and  dung  it ;  and  if  it 
bear  fruit  next  year,  well ;  and  if  not,  thou  shalt  cut  it  down." 
What  words  could  more  clearly  or  forcibly  declare  that  grace 
is  meant  to  lead  to  holy  living,  and  that  when  it  fails  to  do 
that  it  will  be  and  ought  to  be  exchanged  for  judicial  rigour? 
The  words  of  the  vinedresser  naturally  make  no  reference 
to  what  may  follow  the  cutting  down  of  the  unfruitful  tree. 
And  yet  from  the  respect  which  he  shows  for  the  owner's 
urgent  demand  for  fruit,  as  well  as  from  that  demand  itself, 
it  is  easy  to  infer  what  is  to  be  expected.  The  place  of  the 
barren  tree  will  be  rilled  by  another  tree  in  the  hope  of  its 
proving  fruitful.  The  owner  of  the  vineyard  must  have  fruit, 
and  if  he  cannot  get  it  from  one  quarter,  he  will  provide  that 
it  be  forthcoming  from  another.  The  thought  suggested  by 
the  stress  laid  throughout  on  fertility  is  distinctly  expressed 
by  the  words  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  proprietor,  "  Why 
maketh  it  the  land  useless?"  That  the  tree  occupied  un- 
profitably  soil  which  might  otherwise  be  productive  is  held  to 
be  sufficient  condemnation.  Some  interpreters,  ancient  and 
modern,  put  a  pregnant  sense  on  the  verb  Karapyei,  so  as  to 
make  it  cover  not  only  the  idea  of  profitless  occupation,  but 
that  of  injuring  the  land  by  intercepting  the  sun's  rays,  and 
sucking  out  of  it  its  nutritive  juices.1     This  heaping  of  accus- 

1  So  Gregory  the  Great,  and,  almost  as  a  matter  of  course,  after  him 
Trench ;  also  Bengel,  who  thus  pithily  sums  up  the  case  against  the 
tree  : — "  Non  modo  nil  prodest,  sed  etiam  laticem  avertit,  queri  e  terra 
sucturae  erant  vites,  et  soles  interpellat,  et  spatium  occupat."  To  the 
came  effect  Malduuatus. 


en.  ii.]  The  Barren  Fig-Tree.  435 

ations  on  the  devoted  tree  arises  out  of  a  latent  feeling  that 
the  owner's  tone  appears  unduly  severe,  and  stands  in  need 
of  vindication.  A  strong  case  must  be  made  out  against 
the  tree,  that  the  owner  may  be  cleared  from  the  charge  of 
unreasonableness.  Therefore  three  sins  are  imputed  to  it, 
over  and  above  that  of  unfruitfulness — it  occupies  space,  it 
shuts  out  the  sun,  it  impoverishes  the  soil.  But  this  looks  very 
like  a  repetition  of  the  sin  of  Job's  theorising  friends,  that  of 
playing  the  part  of  special  pleaders  for  God.  The  interpreters, 
missing  the  point  of  the  parable,  have  been  decidedly  too 
hard  upon  the  poor  fig-tree.  For,  after  all,  it  is  a  young  tree, 
and  cannot  do  very  great  harm  by  its  leaves  casting  shade,  or 
by  its  roots  sucking  moisture  out  of  the  land.  No  doubt  the 
nation  of  Israel,  which  it  represented,  was  an  old  tree,  and 
did  serious  harm  by  its  hypocritical  profession  of  piety, 
causing  the  name  of  God  to  be  blasphemed  among  the 
Gentiles,  as  Paul  solemnly  declared.  But  the  parable  is  not 
so  constructed  as  to  bring  out  these  facts,  and  we  are  not 
entitled  to  foist  them  into  it.  The  fig-tree  of  the  parable 
is  a  young  tree  of  comparatively  small  dimensions  and  short 
roots.  It  has  just  lived  long  enough  to  show  that  it  is  not 
likely  to  be  fruitful,  and  therefore  uselessly  occupies  a  place 
in  the  vineyard.  And  the  point  of  the  parable  is,  that  that 
alone  is  sufficient  to  justify  removal.  To  accumulate  charges 
against  the  tree  is  simply  to  teach  by  implication  that  the 
one  reason  of  profitless  occupancy  is  not  enough,  and  to 
obscure  the  moral  lesson,  which  is  that  the  supreme  motive 
of  Providence  in  its  dealings  with  men  is  a  regard  to  fruitful- 
ness.  The  attempt  to  make  out  a  strong  case  only  issues 
in  making  out  a  weak  case.  The  true  interest  of  the  inter- 
preter, therefore,  is  to  concentrate  attention  on  the  one  point, 
and  to  set  forth  as  the  lesson  of  the  parable,  that  as  soon 
as  it  has  been  definitely  ascertained  that  a  tree  planted  in  the 
Divine  vineyard  is  barren,  and  therefore  idly  occupies  the 
ground,  it  ought  to  be  removed  and  another  planted  in  its 
room.1     In  the  history  of  nations  a  long  time  is  allowed  for 

1  The  Vulgate  renders  Karapyii  by  occupat.  Trench  pronounces  the 
rendering  inadequate;  in  our  view  it  hits  the  meaning  intended  exactly. 
The  fact  that  Kurapytlv  is  a  favourite  Pauline  word  might  tempt  us  to  put 
a  Pauline  sense  on  a  word  which  occurs  here  only  outside  of  Paul'f 

F  F   2 


43  6         The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  hi 

the  ascertainment  of  the  fact ;  but  it  holds  good,  nevertheless, 
that  such  is  the  principle  on  which  nations  are  dealt  with  by 
Providence,  and,  in  particular,  that  such  is  the  principle  on 
which  the  people  of  Israel  were  dealt  with. 

The  means  proposed  by  the  vinedresser  for  the  cure  oi 
barrenness  are  characteristic.  They  are  means  of  grace ; 
such  means  as  from  the  gospel  records  we  know  to  have  been 
employed  by  Christ  to  win  His  countrymen  to  repentance 
and  true  piety.  "  I  shall  dig  about  it,  and  dung  it."  These 
processes  began  with  the  ministry  of  John  the  Baptist,  and 
svere  carried  on  faithfully  and  lovingly  by  Jesus  till  the  hour 
*'hen  He  uttered  the  pathetic  lament  over  Jerusalem,  because 
ihe  had  defeated  all  His  efforts  to  save  her.1  The  doctrine 
M.  the  Kingdom  was  the  chief  ingredient  in  the  fertilising 
m.itter  laid  at  the  roots  of  the  barren  tree.  That  doctrine 
was  supremely  well  fitted  to  regenerate  Israel,  and  cause  her 
to  bring  forth  fruit  to  God,  in  place  of  mere  foliage  and  wood. 
Yet  it  signally  failed  to  do  so  ;  the  Jewish  people,  as  a  whole, 
treated  the  good  tidings  with  contempt,  and  became  worse 
rather  than  better.  And  it  is  a  melancholy  reflection,  that 
this  is  apt  to  be  the  case  with  a  people  after  it  has  attained 
a  cert  tin  stage  of  spiritual  decay.  The  goodness  of  God 
leadeth  it  not  to  repentance ;  it  rather  despises  the  riches 
of  His  goodness  and  forbearance  and  long-suffering.  This 
fact  in  ihe  spiritual  world  has  its  analogue  in  the  physical 
world.  It  is  a  well-known  fact,  that  both  in  the  animal  and 
in  the  vegetable  kingdom  fertility  is  frequently  better  pro- 
moted by  starving  than  by  fattening.2  A  barren  tree,  gone 
to  leaf  and  wood,  is  rendered  fertile,  not  by  dunging,  but  by 
cutting  the  roots.  Severe  treatment  restores  to  fruit-bearing 
more  readily  than  generous  gardening.  Poor  populations  are 
more  prolific  than  well-to-do  classes.     It  is  a  remarkable  law 

Epistles,  or  to  suppose  that  Luke,  the  Pauline  evangelist,  must  have 
understood  it  in  a  Pauline  sense.  But  even  if  we  were  to  yield  to  this 
impulse,  it  would  not  conduct  to  a  sense  widely  different  from  that  assigned 
to  the  word  in  our  exposition.  A  prevalent  Pauline  sense  of  the  term  is 
"to  make  void."  That  is  just  what  an  unfruitful  tree  does  to  land.  The 
land  is  as  good  as  non-existent  which  is  occupied  by  a  barren  tree. 

1  ^ui  vinitor  eximia  imago  est  ejus  qui  ili>v  rij»»  vo\tp  inUXavaiv  iv 
uirri\v.     Unger. 

8  Vide  Doubleda/s  '  Law  of  Population.' 


ch.  ii.]  The  Barren  Fig-Tree.  437 

this,  according  to  which  impoverishment  is  the  condition 
of  abundant  reproduction,  and  nature  is  compelled  to  make 
an  effort  at  self-preservation,  by  having  its  continued  existence 
threatened.  The  law,  ever  active  alike  in  the  physical  and  in 
the  spiritual  spheres,  was  exemplified  in  Israel.  The  manur- 
ing process  utterly  failed,  and  there  was  nothing  left  but  to 
try  the  cutting  process.  This  process  was  tried  when  Israel 
was  cut  off,  and  the  Gentiles  were  put  in  her  place.  Then 
means  of  grace  gave  place  to  measures  of  severity,  to  which 
Paul  applied  the  expressive  name  of  bjioTopla.}  According 
to  the  apostle,  thes>e  measures  were  means  of  grace  under  a 
different  guise.  They  were  only  a  new  way  towards  the  old 
end— that  of  making  Israel  in  truth  a  people  of  God.  Such 
is  the  drift  of  the  last  part  of  the  great  argument  by  which 
Paul  seeks  to  reconcile  his  gospel  with  the  election  of  Israel. 
God,  he  says,  hath  not  totally  or  finally  cast  off  His  people. 
He  has  only  adopted  a  new  method  of  accomplishing  the 
purpose  of  the  election.2  It  is  a  comforting  doctrine,  whether 
we  have  regard  to  the  case  of  Israel  or  to  the  dark,  judicial 
side  of  God's  dealings  with  men  generally.  It  is  a  doctrine 
not  taught  in  our  parable.  The  cutting  down  spoken  of  there 
is  final  and  irretrievable.  For  if  a  tree  be  felled  with  the  axe 
it  cannot  grow  again.  The  fact  reminds  us  of  the  relativity 
and  partiality  of  many  individual  Scripture  statements,  and  of 
the  need  for  combining  mutually  complementary  texts  in 
order  to  a  just,  full,  and  balanced  view  of  Bible  teaching  on 
matters  of  fundamental  moment. 

1  Romans  xi.  22. 

8  Vide  remarks  on  this  topic  in  connection  with  the  parable  of  the  Great 
Supper,  at  p.  338. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE    TWO    SONS* 
or,  Israel's  leaders  charged  with  the  vice  of  insincerity. 

DURING  the  conflicts  of  the  Passion-week  Jesus  spake  the 
following  parable,  one  of  the  three  directed  one  after  the 
other  against  the  ecclesiastical  leaders  of  the  Jewish  people, 
now  become  His  relentless  adversaries : 

But  what  think  yet  A  man  had  two  sons ;  and  coming  to  the  first,  he 
said,  Son,  go  work  to-day  in  the  vineyard.  And  he  answered  and 
said,  I  go,  sir;  and  went  not.  And  coming  to  the  second,  he  said 
likewise.  And  he  answered  and  said,  I  will  not;  but  afterwards, 
repenting,  he  went.  Which  of  the  two  did  the  will  of  his  father  f 
They  say  the  second.  Jesus  saith  to  them,  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  that 
the  publicans  and  the  harlots  go  into  the  kingdom  of  God  before 
you.  For  John  came  to  you  in  the  way  of  righteousness,  and  ye 
believed  him  not;  but  the  publicans  and  the  harlots  believed  him: 
and  ye,  when  ye  saw  it,  did  not  even  afterwards  repent,  that  ye  might 
believe  him.— St.  Matt.  xxi.  28— 32. l 

This  parable,  like  that  of  the  Children  in  the  Market-place, 
is  also  a  parable  of  moral  criticism,  associated  here  as  in  the 
earlier  instance  with  the  name  of  the  Baptist.  It  arose 
naturally  out  of  the  preceding  discussion  in  which  Jesus,  put 
upon  His  defence,  with  controversial  tact  made  use  of  John 
to  put  to  silence  His  opponents.  John's  career  was  finished  ; 
his  name  belonged  to  history ;  and  public  opinion  had  pro- 
nounced on  him  its  final  verdict,  to  the  effect  that  he  was 

1  We  give  the  parable  as  it  stands  in  the  text  of  the  Vatican  Codex, 
and  as  given  in  Westcott  and  Hort ;  the  order  in  which  the  two  sons  are 
named  being  the  inverse  of  that  in  the  T.  R.  For  remarks  in  vindication 
of  this  order,  see  the  exposition. 


ch.  in.]  The  Two  Sons*  439 

a  true  prophet  of  God,  entitled  to  speak  in  God's  name  to  his 
fellow-countrymen.  This  judgment  the  religious  heads  of 
the  people  could  not  afford  to  gainsay,  and  as  prudent  men 
of  the  world  they  bowed  to  it.  But  they  did  not  recognise 
the  claims  of  the  Baptist  while  he  lived  and  carried  on  his 
work.  Then  they  found  fault  with  him,  not  less  than  with 
Jesus,  though  on  different  grounds.  Of  this  fact  Jesus, 
interrogated  concerning  His  prophetic  authority,  takes  care 
to  remind  them  now,  putting  them  in  an  awkward  dilemma 
by  asking  the  question  :  "  The  baptism  of  John,  whence  was 
it  ?  from  heaven  or  from  men  ? "  The  effect  of  the  question 
was  to  rob  their  doubt  or  unbelief  in  regard  to  Himself  of 
all  moral  weight.  It  meant :  "  You  bow  to  the  opinion  of 
the  public  now,  concerning  John,  but  you  know  how  you 
thought  and  spoke  of  him  not  long  ago.  Your  adverse 
opinion  against  a  man  does  not  count  for  much.  He  may  be 
a  genuine  messenger  of  God,  and  yet  be  evil  spoken  of  by 
you.  I  do  not  think  it  worth  while  to  answer  your  question 
about  my  authority.  If  ever  you  recognise  it,  it  will  be  after 
the  world  has  done  so,  for  your  way  is  not  to  lead  but  to 
follow  opinion." 

Having  first  used  John  in  self-defence,  Jesus  next  proceeded 
to  turn  him  into  a  weapon  of  attack  against  His  foes  by 
relating  in  parabolic  form  the  treatment  which  His  fellow- 
prophet  received  at  their  hands.  The  parable  and  its  inter- 
pretation amount  to  a  charge  of  insincerity  against  the 
Pharisaic  class,  as  manifested  in  their  behaviour  towards  the 
Baptist.  Animadversion  on  this  Pharisaic  vice  was  natural 
in  the  circumstances  ;  for  the  opponents  of  Jesus  had  just 
shown  themselves  guilty  of  it  by  their  evasive  answer  to  His 
question  concerning  John's  baptism  and  its  source.  "We 
know  not,"  replied  they,  because  it  was  inconvenient  to  give 
a  more  distinct  answer.  Had  they  spoken  according  to  the 
thoughts  of  their  own  hearts  they  would  have  given  one 
answer;  had  they  followed  their  inclination  to  echo  the  voice 
of  the  nation  they  would  have  returned  an  opposite  answer. 
They  in  fact  said  both  yes  and  no  to  the  assertion  that  John 
was  a  prophet;  yes,  by  their  deference  to  the  vox  populi ; 
no,  by  their  deepest  sympathies.  The  design  of  the  parable 
is  to  declare  that  what  these  men  did  then  they  had  been 


440  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,   [book.  111. 

doing  all  along — assuming  a  yes-and-no  attitude  towards  the 
Baptist's  public  vocation  and  ministry,  seeming  to  approve 
his  general  aim  yet  utterly  out  of  sympathy  with  his  spirit. 
The  parabolic  discourse  seems  to  charge  a  twofold  insincerity 
against  the  parties  animadverted  on ;  one  of  the  past,  and 
one  of  the  present  They  had  said  yes  and  no  while  John 
exercised  his  ministry,  approving  of  his  way  so  far  as  it  was 
a  way  of  legal  righteousnesss,  disapproving  of  his  spirit ;  they 
say  yes  and  no  still,  saying  with  the  general  public,  '  John  is 
a  prophet,'  and  so  appearing  at  length  to  believe  in  him :  yet 
all  the  while  disliking  his  moral  temper  as  much  as  ever,  so 
retaining  their  secret  conviction  altogether  unrepented  of. 

Insincerity,  then,  deep,  habitual,  incurable,  is  the  vice  with 
which  the  Pharisaic  character  is  here  branded.  It  is  a  much 
more  serious  charge  than  that  brought  in  the  earlier  parable 
of  moral  criticism.  There  the  fault  animadverted  on  is  simply 
childish  caprice  and  whimsicality,  which  can  be  pleased  with 
nothing,  and  regards  with  equal  dislike  the  most  diverse 
moral  tendencies.  There  also  the  censure  is  mitigated  by 
the  employment  of  children  as  an  emblem  of  the  objects  of 
censure,  for  who  is  much  surprised  at  the  peccadilloes  ot 
children,  however  naughty  ?  Here  the  emblem  of  an  evil 
generation  is  a  son  grown  to  man's  estate,  who  may  be 
expected  to  realise  the  responsibilities  and  to  address  himself 
seriously  to  the  duties  of  life.  And  what  is  charged  against 
this  son  is  that  he  recognises  his  responsibilities  in  word  or 
sentiment  only,  not  in  deed,  and  so  trifles  with  and  wrongs 
those  to  whom  he  owes  relative  duties.  Yet  the  vices  exposed 
in  the  two  parables  are  more  closely  connected  than  at  first 
appears.  The  child  of  the  earlier  parable  is  the  father  of  the 
young  man  of  the  later.  The  child's  fault  is  playing  at 
religion  ;  the  man's  fault  is  still  that  of  playing  at  religion, 
only  in  a  theatrical,  hypocritical  sense. 

The  two  parables,  while  linked  together  by  the  common 
reference  to  John  in  the  interpretation,  have  this  difference, 
that,  whereas  in  the  earlier  both  John  and  Jesus  are  alluded 
to  in  the  interpretation,  in  the  latter  John  alone  comes  in. 
This  is  easily  explained  by  the  difference  in  the  didactic  drift. 
The  earlier  parable,  having  for  its  aim  to  convict  the  contem. 
poraries  of  Jesus  and  John  of  unreasonable  caprice,  naturally 


ch.  in.]  The  Two  Sons.  441 

employs  for  this  purpose  both  prophets,  so  diverse  in  their 
way  of  life  and  work,  yet  equally  disapproved  of  by  the  men 
of  that  generation.  The  present  parable,  being  intended  to 
establish  a  charge  of  insincerity,  could  not  with  effect  refer 
to  the  behaviour  of  the  parties  censured  towards  Jesus.  For 
they  had  never  even  pretended  or  seemed  to  side  with  Him. 
From  the  first  they  had  regarded  Him  and  His  ways  with 
surprise  and  distrust,  which  as  time  went  on  deepened  into 
disgust,  hostility,  and  hatred.  He  and  they  lay  too  far 
apart,  not  only  in  spirit  but  in  fundamental  principles.  They 
might  be  wrong  and  He  right,  but  their  dissent  could  not 
convict  them  of  insincerity,  but  only  of  spiritual  blindness. 
Reference  to  the  case  of  John,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
peculiarly  apposite  in  connection  with  an  attempt  to  establish 
such  a  charge.  For  John  and  the  Pharisees  and  Scribes  had 
much  in  common.  Their  'way' — using  the  term  as  it  is 
sometimes  used  in  the  New  Testament,  in  the  sense  of  a 
religion x — and  John's  was  essentially  the  same.  John  came 
neither  eating  nor  drinking — that  is,  practising  ascetic  fasting* 
— observing  the  rules  regarding  purification,3  and  teaching  his 
disciples  forms  of  prayer;*  just  as  the  Pharisees  did,  who 
fasted  oft,  scrupulously  attended  to  ceremonial  washing,  and 
said  many  prayers.  The  watchword  of  both  parties  was 
righteousness,  and  their  professed  aim  to  keep  the  law  in  all 
its  parts.  This  agreement  in  principle  and  aim  is  what  is 
referred  to  in  the  expression,  "John  came  unto  you  in  the 
way  of  righteousness" 6  The  phrase  is  not  employed  to 
express  the  common- place  truth  that  John  was  a  righteous 
man.  It  means :  "  John  came  in  your  own  way ;  the  way 
you  loved  and  professed  to  walk  in,  the  good  old  way  as  you 
might  think  it,  comparing  it  with  mine  which  might  appear 
to  you  a  new  way  involving  objectionable  innovations  :  neglect 
of  fasting  and  ablutions,  Sabbath  desecrations,  and  the  like." 
The  implied  assertion  is  that  they  had  no  excuse  for  not 
believing  in  John  such  as  they  might  plausibly  allege  for  not 
believing  in  Himself.  If  they  disbelieved  in  John  it  could 
not  be  on  account  of  his  principles  or  his  practice ;  it  must 
be  solely  on  account  of  the  earnestness  with  which  he  pro- 

1  Vide  Acts  ix.  2  ;  xix.  9,  &c.  f  Matt.  ix.  14  ;  xi.  18. 

■  John  iii.  25.  4  Luke  xi.  I.  6  Matt.  xxi.  32. 


442         The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,  [book  hi, 

claimed  his  principles,  and  insisted  on  their  being  carried  out 
in  conduct.1 

Yes !  the  earnestness  of  John  was  his  one  grand  offence  in 
the  eyes  of  his  contemporaries.  He  came  in  their  own  way 
of  righteousness  and  that  they  approved  of,  but  he  came  with 
such  consuming  earnestness  that,  zealots  though  they  were, 
they  were  repelled  and  shocked.  The  man  seemed  out  ol 
his  senses :  possessed,  so  to  speak,  with  a  demoniac  zeal  for 
holiness.  Such  zeal  was  unwholesome,  and  also  uncomfort- 
able, for  it  attached  supreme  importance  to  moral  law,  while 
scrupulously  attentive  to  ritual.  It  rebuked  vice  in  kings ; 
yea,  even  in  Pharisaic  zealots  themselves.  So  they  con- 
demned the  Baptist,  and  in  doing  so  convicted  themselves  of 
insincerity  ;  exhibited  themselves  playing  the  part  of  the  son 
in  the  parable,  saying  to  his  father  bidding  him  go  work  in 
the  vineyard,  "  I  go,  sir,"  and  after  all  not  going.  They  said, 
"  I  go,  sir,"  by  agreeing  with  John's  general  aim,  and  busying 
themselves  about  righteousness.  They  "went  not,"  by  dis- 
approving of  John's  spirit  of  downright  moral  earnestness 
and  behaving  as  moral  triflers,  attending  seriously  to  minutiae, 
neglecting  the  great  matters  of  the  law. 

It  would  have  been  possible  to  represent  the  religionists 
of  Judaea  in  this  light,  in  parabolic  form,  without  introducing 
a  second  son.  The  parable  might  have  run,  "A  certain  man 
had  a  son,  and  he  said  to  him, '  Go,  my  son,  work  to-day  in 
my  vineyard  ; '  and  he  said,  '  I  go,  sir,  and  went  not ; ' "  and 
the  interpretation :  "  John  summoned  you  to  walk  in  the 
way  of  legal  piety,  and  ye  affected  great  zeal  for  that  way ; 
nevertheless  ye  walked  not  in  it."  But  the  introduction  of 
a  second  figure  serves  several  good  purposes.  The  pictur- 
esque interest  of  the  parable  is  immensely  increased  by  con- 
trast. The  character  which  it  is  the  chief  object  of  the  speaker 
to  describe  is  more  exactly  defined  and  estimated  by  com- 

1  So  Olshausen.  Trench  refers  in  general  terms  to  his  view,  without 
naming  him,  and  explains  its  import  without  saying  whether  he  approves 
it  or  not.  "An  emphasis,"  he  remarks,  "has  been  sometimes  laid 
on  the  words,  '  in  the  way  of  righteousness?  "  This  is  a  most  unsatis- 
factory way  of  disposing  of  a  view  which  is  either  a  conceit,  or  the  key 
to  the  interpretation  of  the  parable.  We  have  no  doubt  at  all  that  it  is 
the  latter. 


ch.  in.]  The  Two  Sons.  443 

parison  with  another  type,  also  faulty  but  not  so  criminal. 
Then  by  this  device  it  is  made  possible  to  present  to  view 
the  whole  behaviour  of  the  Pharisaic  class  towards  John,  from 
the  days  of  his  appearing  in  the  desert  till  now.  They  are 
exhibited  not  only  as  giving  a  hypocritical  response  to  the 
Baptist's  summons,  but  as  persisting  in  their  first  mood  when 
the  course  of  events  seemed  to  demand  a  change  of  mind. 
When  the  class  represented  by  the  publicans  and  the  harlots 
had  responded  to  John's  call  and  repented,  and  when  by 
general  consent  he  had  been  accepted  as  a  prophet,  their 
inmost  thoughts  remained  unaltered.  For  prudential  reasons 
they  might  have  changed  their  tone,  and  ceased  to  complain 
of  the  Baptist's  extreme  and  unreasonable  temper  as  an 
excuse  for  keeping  aloof  from  his  movement,  but  they  had 
not  changed  their  heart.  Finally  the  use  of  comparison  gave 
a  natural  occasion  for  the  question  by  which  the  auditors 
were  drawn  unwittingly  into  self-condemnation. 

In  these  remarks  we  have  virtually  assumed  that  one  of 
the  two  sons — the  one  who  represents  the  degraded  classes- 
is  introduced  as  a  mere  foil  to  the  other,  that  representing  the 
religious  leaders  of  the  people.  If  this  assumption  be  correct, 
then  we  should  expect  to  find  the  latter  first  mentioned  in 
the  parable.  The  principal  character  naturally  takes  pre- 
cedence of  the  foil ;  the  main  object  of  censure  of  the  figure 
introduced  merely  to  give  point  to  the  censure.  For  this 
reason  we  have  without  much  hesitation  adopted  the  order 
in  which  the  two  sons  are  named  in  the  Vatican  text.  Our 
chief  feeling  inde«d  is  one  of  surprise  that  there  should  have 
been  any  considerable  variation  in  the  manuscript  readings 
of  the  passage.  The  difficulty  is  not  so  much  to  decide 
which  is  the  more  probable  reading,  as  to  account  for  the 
variations  from  the  Vatican  text  which  exist,  that,  viz.  of 
Codex  Bezae  which  puts  the  son  who  represents  the  publicans 
first,  but  retains  the  Vatican  reading  in  the  answer  to  Christ's 
question,  "  Which  did  the  will  of  his  father  ? "  and  that  of 
the  Textus  Receptus,  which  puts  the  same  son  first,  and  gives 
the  answer  as  that  order  naturally  demands,  the  first?-  Yet 
on  reflection  we  see  several  things  which  might  mislead  copy- 
ists and  tempt  them  to  try  their  hand  at  '  rectifying '  what 
1  This  reading  is  found  in  N  CLX. 


444        The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  iil 

we  regard  as  the  true  text.     In  the  first  place  it  might  easily 
be  assumed  that  the  father  wanted  only  one  son  to  go  to 
work  in   the  vineyard,  in  which    case  the  first  asked   must 
refuse  in  order  to  supply  a  motive  for  asking  the  second 
Then  the  solemn  manner  in  which  the  interpretation  com- 
mences with  a  verily  I  say  unto  you,  might  be  supposed  to 
imply  that  Christ  was  not  merely  confirming  a  right  answer, 
but   correcting  a  wrong   one  given   impudently  in   flagrant 
contradiction  to  common  sense :  the  answer,  viz.  that  the  son 
who  said,  I  go,  sir,  and  went  not,  did  the  will  of  the  father. 
This  idea  would  account  for  the  text  of  Codex  Bezae,  which 
places  first  the  son  who  said,  /  go  not,  and  afterwards  went, 
yet  puts  into  the  mouth  of  the  audience  the  reply  to  Christ's 
query  who  did  the  will  of  his  father — tlie  second.     A  third 
misleading  element  probably  was  the  expression,  go  before  you 
(irpoayovai),  applied  by  Christ  to  the  publicans  and   harlots 
with  reference  to  the  Pharisees ;  which  might  be  interpreted 
thoughtlessly  as  applying  to  the  order  in  which  the  two  sons 
were  named  in  the  parable.     Finally,  in  a  similar  way  the 
word  afterwards  (vorepov),  in  the  clause^,  when  ye  had  seen 
it,  repented  not  afterwards,  might  react  upon  the  arrangement 
by  misleading  copyists  into  the  notion  that  the  representative 
of  the  class  to  whom  these  words  refer  must  come  second. 
When  once  under  these  influences  the  order  had  been  fixed 
as  in  the  Textus  Receptus,  the  change  of  the  answer  given  by 
the  audience  from  the  second  into  the  first  was  almost  a  matter 
of  course,  as  a  rectification  to  bring  the  whole  passage  into 
harmony  with  itself.1 

While  these  considerations  seem  to  explain  the  deviations 
from  the  Vatican  text  as  errors  not  unnatural  on  the  part  of 
mechanical  copyists,  that  text  itself  is  recommended  by  all 
the  probabilities  of  the  case.  It  was  natural  that  the  Pharisees 
should  be  mentioned  first,  not  merely  as  the  more  important 
class   socially,   but   because   they   are   the   direct   object   of 

1  Tregelles  (on  the  printed  text  of  the  '  Greek  Testament,'  pp.  106-8) 
suggests  as  the  meaning  of  6  iWtpoc  in  Codex  Bezae,  ver.  31,  "the  man 
who  afterwards  repented,"  which  would  reconcile  the  answer  with  this 
son  occupying  the  first  place  in  the  parable.  But  this  view  was  not  likely 
to  occur  to  copyists  or  at  least  to  satisfy  them.  The  adoption  of  7rp<2ro< 
along  with  that  order  was  ultimately  certain.  Vide  on  the  whole  passage 
the  notes  of  Westcott  and  Hort. 


ch.  in.]  The  Two  Sons.  t  445 

animadversion.  It  has  indeed  been  suggested  that  the 
Vatican  order  had  its  origin  in  the  fact,  that  the  current 
interpretation  of  the  parable  made  it  refer  to  Jews  and 
Gentiles.1  But  the  suggestion  is  gratuitous,  because  the  order 
in  question  is  equally  congruous  to  the  narrower  reference. 
Whether  we  apply  the  parable  to  Pharisees  and  publicans 
on  the  one  hand,  or  to  Jews  and  Gentiles  on  the  other,  it 
was  most  fitting  that  the  son  who  answered  insincerely  should 
take  precedence  of  the  son  who  answered  rudely.  And  that 
this  was  the  actual  order  seems  to  be  certified  by  the  fact 
that  it  is  in  this  order  the  parties  are  spoken  of  in  the  inter- 
pretation. "John  came  unto  you,"  said  Jesus  to  the  men 
whose  conduct  He  was  criticising,  "  in  the  way  of  righteous- 
ness, and  ye  believed  him  not,  but  the  publicans  and  harlots 
believed  him."  It  only  remains  to  add,  that  the  order  which 
we  defend  corresponds  to  that  in  which  the  same  parties  are 
introduced  in  the  parable  of  the  Great  Supper. 

If  the  introduction  of  a  second  son  representing  the  lowest 
class  of  society  as  a  foil  to  the  first  representing  the  higher 
orders  added  greatly  to  the  literary  and  moral  value  of  the 
parable,  it  also  very  manifestly  enhanced  immeasurably  its 
offensiveness.  To  tell  the  proud  self-satisfied  zealots  for 
righteousness  that  the  moral  scum  of  society  was  nearer  the 
kingdom  of  God  than  they,  was  to  offer  them  a  mortal  and 
unpardonable  insult.  Publicans  and  harlots !  Why  the  phrase 
was  proverbial  to  denote  all  that  was  vile,  loathsome,  and 
alien  to  the  feelings  of  the  pure,  the  respectable,  and  the 
patriotic.  The  analogous  phrase  in  Corea,  another  Judaea  in 
exclusiveness,  is  "  pig-stickers  and  harlots."  2  In  either  case 
the  words  are  so  unsavoury  as  to  be  unfit  to  be  spoken  to 
polite  ears.  Barely  to  use  the  phrase  was  a  sin  against 
conventional  good  taste.  But  to  speak  of  such  people,  and 
to  add,  "bad  as  they  are  in  their  moral  rudeness  and  licen- 
tiousness, they  are  better  than  you,  for  they  have  repented, 
and  that  you,  with  not  less  need,  have  not  done;"  what  a 
deadly  offence,  surely  provocative  of  bitter  resentment  and 
murderous  intents  I 

1  So  Trench. 

*  Vide  'History  of  Corea,  Anrient  and  Modern,'  p.  311,  by  the  Rer. 
John  Ross. 


446         The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,  [book  hi 

Even  so,  Jesus  knew  it ;  and  yet  He  felt  constrained  to 
speak  this  parable  and  its  interpretation.  The  truth  must 
be  spoken,  however  it  might  offend,  because  it  concerned 
more  than  those  to  whom  it  was  first  addressed.  For  while 
mercilessly  severe  as  towards  them,  this  utterance  is  full  ol 
precious  truth  as  regards  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  the 
depraved  members  of  the  human  family.  It  tells  us  what 
we  have  already  learned,  but  what  we  cannot  hear  too  often, 
that  the  kingdom  of  God  is  open  to  all  comers  irrespective 
of  their  moral  antecedents ;  that  there  is  hope  even  for  the 
most  depraved ;  nay,  that  so  far  from  their  case  being  des- 
perate, there  are  great  possibilities  of  good  in  them.  In  telling 
us  so  much,  it  implicitly  tells  us  more :  viz.  that  the  kingdom 
ol  God  is  not  for  Jews  only  but  for  mankind.  For  a  kingdom 
that  can  go  so  low  as  publicans  and  harlots,  must  be  prepared 
eventually  to  go  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  in  quest  of  citizens. 
In  this  parable,  as  in  so  many  others,  there  is  latent  Christian 
universalism  :  a  parable  of  judgment  in  its  bearing  towards 
the  insincere  and  hollow-hearted,  it  is  a  parable  of  grace  in 
its  bearing  towards  the  sinful  everywhere,  whom  it  makes 
welcome  to  all  its  privileges  on  the  one  condition  of  repentance 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  WICKED  HUSBANDMEN  | 

OR,    THE   INIQUITY  OF   ISRAEL'S   LEADERS    EXPOSED   AWD  THE!* 
DOOM    DECLARED. 

In  continuance  of  His  prophetic  discourse,  Jesus  addressed  tc 
His  captious  hearers  another  parable  of  judgment,  saying : 

Hear  another  parable  :  There  was  a  man,  a  householder,  who  planted  a 
vineyard,  and  set  a  hedge  about  it,  and  dug  in  it  a  winepress,  ana 
built  a  tower,  and  let  it  out  to  husbandmen,  and  went  abroad.  Ana 
when  the  fruit  season  drew  near,  he  sent  his  servants  to  the  husband- 
men to  receive  its  fruits}  And  the  husbandmen  took  his  servants  and 
beat  one,  and  killed  another,  and  stoned  {to  death)  another.  Again  he 
sent  other  servants  more  than  the  first,2  and  they  did  unto  them  like- 
wise. But  afterwards  he  sent  unto  them  his  son,  saying,  They  will 
reverence  my  son.  But  the  husbandmen,  when  they  saw  the  son,  said 
among  themselves,  This  is  the  heir ;  come,  let  us  kill  him  and  seize  his 
inheritance.  And  laying  hold  of  him,  they  cast  him  out  of  the  vine- 
yard and  slew  him.  When  therefore  the  lord  of  the  vineyard  shall 
have  come,  what  will  he  do  to  those  husbandmen  t  They  say  unto  Him, 
He  will  miserably  destroy  those  miserable  men,3  and  will  let  out  the 
vineyard  to  other  husbandmen  who  shall  render  him  the  fruits  in  their 
seasons. — Matt.  xxi.  33 — 41  (Mark  xii.  1 — 9;  Luke  xx.  9 — 17). 

The  abrupt,  imperative  manner  in  which  the  parable  is 
introduced  betrays  the  emotion  of  the  Speaker.  He  is  aware 
what  deep  offence  the  words  last  spoken  have  given,  and 
proceeds  to  reveal  His  knowledge  by  foreshadowing  His  own 

1  Or  his,  the  avrov  may  refer  either  to  the  vineyard  or  to  the  owner. 

f  irA«tovac  might  refer  to  quality  as  well  as  to  number,  and  is  so  under- 
stood by  some.     Vide  Exposition. 

'  Kacot>c  Kaicu>c  &TTo\iaei.  The  play  of  words  in  the  Greek  has  been 
variously  done  into  English  by  commentators.  The  attempt  of  the  R.  V. 
adopted  above  is  good  enough. 


448  The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,  [book  hi. 

fate.  He  is  aware  also  that  insincerity  never  stands  alone, 
that  when  pressed  by  moral  earnestness  to  cease  trifling  and 
become  real  it  resents  the  demand  as  an  impertinence ;  and 
He  proceeds  with  stern  resolution,  and  at  all  hazards,  to  show 
the  triflers  the  truculent  side  of  their  character.  Yet  again 
He  regards  the  inquiry  concerning  His  authority  as  a  mere 
affectation,  one  more  manifestation  of  the  Pharisaic  vice  of 
insincerity ;  and  He  proceeds  to  show  how  little  His  interro- 
gators and  their  predecessors  cared  for  authority  insisting  in 
God's  name  on  anything  being  done  which  they  did  not  feel  in- 
clined to  do.  The  parable  rises  to  the  sublime  height  of  that 
sacred  passion  of  prophetic  indignation  which  animated  the 
soul  of  Jesus  during  the  days  immediately  preceding  His  cruci- 
fixion. It  is  by  no  means  a  pleasant  parable  to  read,  the  tragic 
history  to  which  it  relates  appearing  too  clearly  through  the 
parabolic  veil.  But  the  fault  is  not  the  Speaker's,  it  is  that  of 
those  whose  conduct  and  doom  He  describes.  It  may  be  a 
question  whether  the  parabolic  form  is  of  much  use  in  such  a 
case ;  whether  when  it  comes  to  speaking  so  plainly  as  is  done 
here,  it  were  not  better  to  speak  more  plainly  still,  and  to 
describe  in  undisguised,  unfigurative  terms  the  repulsive  facts 
of  the  past,  and  the  not  less  repulsive  events  about  to  happen  ; 
as  Stephen  did  in  after  days,  whose  speech  before  the  San- 
hedrim, as  has  been  remarked,  is  but  the  commentary  and 
development  of  the  parable  before  us.1  One  unavoidable 
result  of  the  adoption  of  the  parabolic  form  is  improbability 
in  the  fictitious  narrative ;  for  who  ever  heard  of  husbandmen, 
even  in  the  worst  governed  countries,  behaving  as  these  vine- 
dressers ?  The  parable  is  true  to  Israel's  history,  but  it  is  not 
true  to  natural  probability ;  and  for  the  reason  stated  in 
connection  with  the  parable  of  the  Great  Supper,  to  which  the 
same  observation  applies,  viz.  that  the  conduct  animadverted 
on  is  itself  thoroughly  unnatural.  But  why  speak  in  parables 
when  by  the  nature  of  the  case  probability  is  excluded  ?  Is 
it  that  men  whose  self-complacency  will  prevent  them  from 
seeing  the  drift  of  the  story  may  be  led  on  to  condemn  them- 
selves ?  We  can  hardly  lay  much  stress  on  that,  especially 
when  we  consider  that  in  the  narratives  of  Mark  and  Luke 
the  answer  to  the  question,  What  shall  be  done  to  these  men  ? 

1  Sabatier,  '  V Apotre  Paul/ 


CH.  iv.]  The  Wicked  Husbandmen.  449 

is  not  ascribed  to  the  audience.1  Or  is  it  that  the  Speaker 
shrinks  from  referring  to  Himself  without  disguise  as  the  Son 
of  God  ?  There  is  more  force  in  this  consideration,  for  such 
delicacy  and  reserve  was  characteristic  of  the  Son  of  man,  and 
suitable  to  the  state  of  humiliation.  But  perhaps  the  true 
explanation  is  that  in  this  instance  Jesus  did  not  so  much 
invent  a  new  parable  as  use  an  old  one  whose  words  were 
familiar  to  Jewish  ears,  and  its  meaning  generally  understood 
— that,  viz.,  contained  in  Isaiah's  song  of  the  vineyard.2  At 
most,  our  parable  is  but  an  old  theme  worked  up  with  new 
variations.  Every  one  who  heard  it  knew  what  the  vineyard 
with  its  hedge,  winepress,  and  tower  signified,  and  who  the 
vine-dressers  were,  and  who  the  servants  sent  for  the  fruits. 
These  phrases  belonged  to  the  established  religious  dialect  of 
Israel  as  much  as  the  words  pastor,  flock,  lambs  of  the  flock, 
Zion,  &c,  do  to  ours,  used  by  us  all  without  consciousness 
that  we  are  speaking  in  figures.  In  adopting  this  form  of 
presentation,  therefore,  Jesus  was  not  so  much  speaking  in 
parables  as  using  the  recognised  authority  of  written  prophecy 
against  His  opponents,  a  most  appropriate  procedure  when 
the  question  at  issue  respected  His  personal  authority.  It 
was  saying  in  effect,  Let  me  take  Isaiah's  familiar  parable  of 
the  vineyard  and  expand  it  a  little  that  I  may  show  you  how 
it  stands  with  you  as  regards  this  matter  of  authority,  that  we 
may  see  whether  ye  have  as  much  respect  for  the  ascertained 
will  of  God  as  ye  pretend,  so  that  ye  should  be  sure  to  submit 
to  Me  if  only  ye  were  satisfied  that  I  was  an  accredited 
messenger  of  God. 

The  parable,  it  will  be  observed,  does  more  than  show  what 
amount  of  respect  the  parties  to  whom  it  was  addressed  had 
for  prophetic  authority.  It  shows  that  disregard  for  authority 
going  counter  to  inclination  had  been  a  characteristic  of 
Israel's  leaders  and  representative  men  all  through  her  history. 
This  does  not  indeed  appear  from  the  mere  structure  of  the 
parable,  for  the  events  described  might  all  fall  within  the 
compass  of  a  single  fruit  season,  the  servants  being  sent  one 
after  another  to  demand  the  produce  due  in  one  and  the 
same  year,  for  anything  that  is  said  to  the  contrary ;  though 

1  Mark  xii.  9 ;  Luke  xx.  16.  *  IsaiaA  v.  u 

G  G 


45  o         The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  hi 

the  number  of  messengers  sent  seems  hardly  compatible  with 
the  brief  period  of  a  single  fruit  season,  and  suggests  as  the 
more  natural  hypothesis  a  succession  of  seasons,  when  the 
demand  for  fruit  was  renewed  as  the  time  came  round.  But 
the  self-evident  interpretation  of  the  parable  as  referring  to 
the  prophets  under  the  servants,  makes  it  certain  that  the 
intention  of  the  Speaker  was  to  characterise  the  behaviour  of 
Israel  throughout  her  long  history  towards  God's  messengers. 
And  this  broadening  of  the  charge  of  iniquitous  dealing  so  as 
to  include  the  misbehaviour  of  the  past,  was  well  fitted  to 
serve  Christ's  purpose  to  bring  home  such  a  charge  to  the 
consciences  of  His  hearers.  It  raised  a  strong  presumption 
against  these  hypocritical  inquirers  after  His  authority  to  show 
that  they  belonged  to  a  race  whose  habit  it  had  all  along  been 
to  treat  authority  with  contempt,  except  when  it  chimed  in 
with  their  own  wishes.  In  the  parable  of  the  Children  in  the 
Market-place  Jesus  had  spoken  of  this  generation.  He  now 
speaks  of  all  the  generations  of  Israel's  headmen  as  one 
generation  morally,  with  rebellion  in  its  blood,  the  original 
sin  transmitted  from  sire  to  son.  The  fact  as  to  the  past 
representatives  of  this  moral  generation  was  indubitable,  and 
the  onus  probandi  lay  on  the  present  representatives  to  show 
that  they  were  free  from  [the  taint.  The  likelihood  was  all 
the  other  way,  viz.  that  they  would  consummate  the  iniquity 
of  their  fathers  by  committing  a  greater  offence  of  the  kind 
denounced  than  any  previously  committed,  and  so,  filling  up 
the  measure  of  their  sin,  serve  themselves  heir  to  their  guilt, 
and  bear  its  bitter  penalty.  That  this  would  be  the  actual 
fact  it  is  the  aim  of  the  latter  part  of  the  parable  to  declare, 
the  reference  being  to  the  approaching  crucifixion  of  Jesus, 
the  Christ,  and  the  Son  of  God,  and  the  subsequent  ruin  which 
overtook  the  Jewish  nation. 

A  very  noticeable  feature  in  the  parable  is  the  dark  picture 
it  presents  of  the  behaviour  of  the  vine-dressers  towards  the 
servants  sent  to  demand  the  fruit.  The  most  violent  acts  are 
selected  as  typical.  One  is  flayed  by  stripes,  another  is  slain 
by  the  sword,  a  third  is  put  to  death  by  stoning  l — the  three 
instances  forming  an  ascending  series  of  atrocities.  So  in 
Matthew's  version,  and  similarly  in  Mark  and  Luke,  the  con* 
>  Vide  Lightfoot, '  Horae  Hebraicae.' 


ch.  iv.]  The  Wicked  Husbandmen.  451 

duct  of  the  criminals  advances  from  bad  to  worse,  though  the 
stages  are  not  so  distinctly  marked.1  In  this  description 
Christ's  audience  would  not  recognise  their  own  likeness  ;  for 
as  yet  they  had  been  guilty  of  nothing  so  truculent,  though 
they  were  on  the  point  of  committing  even  greater  atrocities. 
They  had  not  treated  the  'servant'  of  their  time,  John  the 
Baptist,  in  so  barbarous  a  fashion.  He  had  indeed  been  be- 
headed, but  not  by  them.  All  they  had  done  was  to  look  on 
him  as  a  madman,  and  so  excuse  themselves  for  disregarding 
his  summons  to  repentance.  The  triflers  had  not  found  John's 
ministry  sufficiently  provoking  or  formidable  to  carry  their 
opposition  beyond  depreciatory  speech  and  cold  neglect.  The 
implied  allegation  of  the  parable  is  that  they  would  have  gone 
greater  lengths  had  they  been  forced  to  it  by  circumstances. 
The  direct  assertion  is  that  their  predecessors  had  gone  greater 
lengths;  had  actually  beaten,  insulted,  and  killed  their  prophets. 
They  had  also  committed  offences  of  a  less  aggravated  char- 
acter. They  too  had  manifested  their  hostility  to  the  pro- 
phetic order  under  the  minor  forms  of  evil  speaking,  mockery, 
and  ridicule.  The  drunkards  of  Ephraim  mocked  Isaiah's 
reiterated  warnings  and  expostulations  by  comparing  him  to 
a  teacher  of  children,  with  his  everlasting  tsav-la-tsav,  tsav-la- 
tsav,  kav-la-kav,  kav-la-kav?  But  they  had  often  shown  them- 
selves capable  of  worse  things  than  banter  and  blasphemy ; 
even  of  down-right  brutality,  as  in  the  case  of  Zechariah  stoned 
to  death  in  the  court  of  the  house  of  the  Lord.3  And  acts  of 
this  more  aggravated  character  are  singled  out  for  mention 
to  show  what  the  spirit  of  religious  insincerity  tends  to  and 
culminates  in.  This  is  what  ultimately  comes  of  that  temper 
which  begins  by  saying  -politely,  "  f  go,  sir,"  and  not  going. 
Press  insincerity  a  little,  and  the  politeness  gives  place  to 
rudeness  ;  press  it  still  more,  and  rudeness  in  word  gives 
place  to  rudeness  in  act ;  press  it  still  further,  and  minor 
indignities,  such  as  smiting  with  the  hand,  spitting,  pulling  off 
the  hair,  give  place  to  more  serious  forms  of  violence,  such  as 
the  inflicting  of  wounds  with  lethal  weapons ;  press  it  yet 

1  Especially  is  this  true  of  Luke,  whose  version  is  somewhat  toned 
Jovn  throughout. 

*  Isaiah  xxviii.  10.     Vide  remarks  on  this  passage  at  p.  23. 

•  2  Chron.  xxiv.  21. 

GG2 


45  a         The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  hi, 

further,  and  violence  culminates  in  murder.  Behold  the  polite 
but  false-hearted  gentleman,  transformed  by  degrees  into  a 
ruffian.  Who  could  have  believed  it  ?  yet  how  natural  it  all 
is.  "Is  thy  servant  a  dog?"  asked  Hazael  of  the  prophet, 
quite  smcerely  possibly,  and  yet  he  did  all  the  atrocious  acts 
specified.  History  supplies  ample  material  for  illustrating  the 
strange  transformation,  and  proving  the  humbling  truth  that 
refinement  and  savagery  do  not  lie  far  apart  in  human  nature. 
The  most  startling  example  is  supplied  in  the  case  of  the 
very  men  to  whom  this  parable  was  addressed.  In  their 
ordinary  relations  with  their  fellow-men,  the  religious  heads 
of  Israel  were,  without  doubt,  courteous  and  gentle,  pleasant, 
if  not  sincere,  in  speech,  and  duly  attentive  to  all  social  pro- 
prieties. Yet  these  same  men  were  responsible  for  all  the 
indignities,  iniquities,  and  brutalities  of  the  crucifixion  and  its 
accompaniments. 

Another  significant  feature  in  the  parable  is  the  particu- 
larity with  which  the  details  connected  with  the  construction 
of  the  vineyard  are  specified.  For  the  general  purpose  of  the 
story  it  might  have  been  enough  to  have  said,  A  certain 
householder  planted  a  vineyard,  and  let  it  out  to  husband- 
men. The  introduction  of  the  processes  of  hedging,  digging 
a  winepress,  hewing  out  a  place  for  a  vat,1  and  building  a 
tower,  is  not  a  mere  affair  of  word-painting  for  picturesque 
effect ;  considering  the  circumstances  and  the  mood  of  the 
Speaker,  such  merely  literary  play  was  very  unlikely.  The 
design  is  to  signalise  the  contrast  between  the  spirit  of  the 
owner  and  that  of  the  men  to  whom  the  vineyard  was 
entrusted.  The  owner  has  an  eye  to  fruit ;  the  details  depict- 
ing the  construction  of  the  vineyard  all  point  towards  fruit 
as  the  chief  end,  and  they  are  enumerated  for  no  other  reascn. 
There  is  a  hedge  that  the  vines  may  not  be  spoiled  by  wild 
beasts ;  a  press  and  vat  that  the  grapes  may  be  squeezed  and 
the  juice  preserved ;  a  tower  that  the  ripe  fruit  may  not  be 
stolen.  The  didactic  significance  of  these  particulars  is  not, 
as  in  the  original  form  of  the  allegory  in  Isaiah,  that  all  has 
been  done  that  could  be  done  for  the  vineyard,  so  as  to  make 
the  owner  free  from  blame,  but  that  all  has  been  done  with 

1  Mark  speaks  of  a  viro\i)vtov,  which  signifies  the  vat  for  receiving  th« 
Juice  running  into  it  from  the  press  above. 


en.  iv.]  The  Wicked  Husbandmen  453 

on 2  object  in  view,  viz.  the  production  of  fruit.  In  keeping 
with  this  emphasising  of  fruitfulness  as  the  reason  of  the 
existence  of  the  vineyard  fully  equipped  for  the  purpose,  is 
the  reiterated  persistent  demand  for  the  fruit  when  the  season 
came  round,  as  also  the  intimation  of  the  owner's  purpose,  on 
conclusively  ascertaining  that  no  fruit  was  to  be  forthcoming, 
to  entrust  his  vineyard  to  other  husbandmen,  who  should 
render  the  fruits  in  their  seasons.1  On  the  other  hand,  what 
was  the  temper  of  the  vine-dressers  ?  Was  it  that  of  men 
who  wished  to  keep  the  fruit  to  themselves  instead  of  giving 
it  to  the  owner  ?  No ;  but  rather  that  of  men  who  never 
thought  of  fruit,  but  only  of  the  honour  and  privilege  of  being 
entrusted  with  the  keeping  of  the  vineyard.  They  were 
triflers — men  utterly  devoid  of  earnestness,  and  the  practical 
purpose  of  the  property  committed  to  their  charge  they  habit- 
ually forgot.  The  hedge  and  the  press  and  the  tower  might 
as  well  not  have  been  there.  When  the  servants  came  for 
the  fruit  they  were  simply  surprised.  "  Fruit,  did  you  say  ? 
we  have  occupied  the  position  of  vine-dressers,  and  duly 
drawn  our  wages  ;  what  more  do  you  want  ? "  Such  was  the 
actual  fact  in  regard  to  the  spiritual  heads  of  Israel.  They 
had  been  entrusted  with  a  valuable  institution ;  an  elect 
nation  furnished  with  good  laws,  and  meant  to  be  a  holy 
nation,  a  people  to  God's  praise.  And  speaking  generally 
they  had  lost  sight  of  the  end  of  Israel's  calling,  and  had  made 
no  use  of  the  means  provided  for  its  attainment.  They  had 
occupied  their  position  for  their  own  glory ;  taken  pay  and 
done  no  work.  They  had  neglected  the  vineyard,  so  that  it 
brought  forth  no  grapes,  or  at  least  only  wild  grapes.  In  a 
word,  they  had  committed  the  sin  to  which  privileged  classes 
have  ever  been  prone,  that  of  thinking  only  of  privilege  and 
forgetting  duty.  All  through  Israel's  history  her  spiritual 
guides,  priests,  scribes,  and  elders,  not  to  speak  of  her  princes, 

1  In  the  following  similitude  of  the  Rejected  Stone,  these  '  others '  are 
called  a 'nation,'  which  seems  to  point  to  the  rejection  of  Israel,  and  the 
call  of  the  Gentiles  ;  the  nation  being  the  true,  spiritual  Israel  of  God  in 
every  land.  (So  Olshausen.)  Keim  ('Jesu  von  Nazara,'  iii.  119)  thinks 
that  a  reference  to  the  Gentiles  is  not  in  keeping  with  the  scope  of  the 
parable  which  animadverts  on  the  sin,  not  of  Israel,  but  of  her  rul«rs  \ 
and  that  the  Vhers'  are  Messiah's  faithful  followers  in  Israel. 


454        5Dft*  Parabolic    Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  hi. 

had  been  saying,"  I  go, sir,"  without  g Ding, professing  to  keep 
a  vineyard  which  they  did  not  keep.1 

Nothing  is  more  remarkable  in  the  history  of  Israel  than 
the  constant  co-existence  within  her  pale  of  two  entirely 
opposite  classes  of  men — that  of  the  moral  toilers,  too  numer- 
ously represented  among  those  exercising  official  influence, 
and  that  of  the  men  of  consuming  zeal  for  righteousness,  that 
is,  the  prophets.  It  is  strange  indeed  that  a  people  so 
prone  to  baseness  should  have  so  many  noble  men,  who  made 
it  their  duty  to  remonstrate  with  it  for  its  baseness,  and 
summon  it  to  a  better  life.  The  parable  accentuates  this 
fact  in  order  to  show  the  enormity  of  Israel's  guilt  and  the 
justness  of  her  doom.  In  the  versions  of  Matthew  and  Mark 
the  multitude  of  servants  sent  is  very  expressly  alluded  to. 
After  stating,  by  way  of  sample,  how  these  were  treated,  the 
first  Evangelist  adds,  "Again  he  sent  other  servants,  more 
than  the  first."  Mark  in  like  manner  uses  the  significant 
phrase,  "  and  many  others."  Luke's  version  is  defective  at 
this  point,  making  mention  only  of  three,  and  giving  no  hints 
that  more  were  sent.  There  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  which 
account  is  most  in  keeping  with  the  didactic  drift  of  the 
parable.  It  has  been  suggested  that  the  expression  irXeLovas 
in  Matthew  refers  not  to  number  but  to  quality,  and  that  the 
purpose  is  to  set  forth  an  enhancement  of  Israel's  guilt,  by 
exhibiting  her  as  treating  with  indignity  a  higher  order  of 
prophets  sent  subsequently  to  those  first  spoken  of.  On  this 
view  the  parable  would  specify  three  stages  or  degrees  of 
criminality :  first,  evil  treatment  of  a  certain  number  of 
servants  ;  second,  similar  treatment  of  servants  of  higher 
grade  ;  third,  the  same  misconduct  towards  one  who  was  not 
a  servant,  but  a  son.  Now,  it  is  perfectly  true  that  the  word 
•nkdovas  might  mean,  not  more  in  the  numerical  sense,  but 
more  respectable,  of  higher  rank.  Nor  is  the  objection  to  this 
view  insuperable  that  no  such  distinction  as  is  implied  existed 
between  the  earlier  and  later  Old  Testament  prophets,2  for  the 

1  The  view  above  given  excludes  the  idea  that  the  vine-dressers  were 
engaged  on  the  metayer  system  of  paying  rent  with  part  of  the  produce. 
On  our  view  there  was  no  produce.  The  sin  of  the  husbandmen  was  not 
dishonesty,  but  neglect 

*  So  Morrison, 


ch.  iv.J  The  Wicked  Husbandmen.  455 

reference  might  be  to  John  the  Baptist,1  or  even  to  John  and 
Jesus  together ;  for  the  latter,  though  referred  to  as  the  son, 
might  also  be  referred  to  as  one  of  the  prophets,  and  on  a  level 
with  John,  as  in  the  earlier  parable  of  the  Children  in  the  Market- 
place. The  contemporaries  of  Jesus  sinned  against  Him  as 
a  prophet,  as  well  as  in  His  higher  capacity  as  the  Messiah, 
and  they  committed  the  one  offence  earlier  than  the  other. 
But  the  interpretation  in  question,  nevertheless,  is  not  to  be 
approved.  It  is  uncertain  at  the  best,  and  it  is  not  required 
by  the  didactic  drift  of  the  parable.  To  aggravate  Israel's 
guilt,  it  was  enough  to  refer  to  the  number  of  her  prophets 
without  insisting  on  any  distinction  between  them  as  to  rank 
or  importance,  which,  though  real,  might  not  be  apparent  to 
the  parties  concerned  ;  as  indeed,  if  John,  or  even  Jesus,  be 
referred  to,  it  was  not,  for  their  contemporaries  did  not  see 
in  them  greater  prophets  than  Elijah,  or  Isaiah,  or  Jeremiah. 
They  thought  they  paid  them  very  great  respect  in  putting 
them  on  a  level  with  the  great  prophets  of  the  olden  time. 

The  last  point  in  the  parable  is  the  mission  of  the  son,  in 
connection  with  which  the  guilt  of  the  vine-dressers  reaches 
its  highest  measure.  In  the  narratives  of  Mark  and  Luke 
the  value  set  upon  this  son  by  the  owner,  his  father,  is 
emphasised.  Luke  represents  the  father  as  calling  him 
'beloved';  Mark  adds  that  he  was  an  only  son.  These 
particulars  are  not  added  to  enhance  the  criminality  of  the 
occupants  of  the  vineyard,  but  to  show  the  intensity  of  the 
owner's  desire  for  fruit.  He  has  found  by  many  experiments 
that  the  tenants  are  utterly  regardless  of  his  claims,  but 
before  arriving  at  the  conclusion  that  to  bring  them  to  their 
senses  is  hopeless,  he  resolves  to  try  once  more,  in  the  most 
effective  way  possible,  by  the  mission  of  his  son.  He  is  aware 
of  the  risk  run  ;  for  the  probability  is  that  the  men  who  have 
habitually  treated  his  messengers  with  disrespect  will  not  be 
restrained  by  any  feeling  of  reverence  from  repeating  their 
misbehaviour  towards  his  son,  and  in  case  they  do,  his  sorrow 
will  be  great  for  the  loss  of  a  beloved  and  only  son.  Never- 
theless, there  is  a  possibility,  and  he  will  run  the  risk,  so 
anxious  is  he  to  bring  them  to  reason.     But  the  result,  as 

1  So  Goebel,  who,  like  Bengel,  Campbell,  &c,  takes  nXtiwae  as  an 

adjective  of  quality. 


45  ^        The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  hi. 

was  to  be  expected,  is  unhappy.  The  mission  of  the  son 
only  brings  a  new  opportunity  of  outrage,  and  a  temptation 
to  more  audacious  and  complete  acts  of  rebellion  than  any 
hitherto  perpetrated.  Seeing  this  last  messenger,  and  dis- 
covering somehow  that  he  is  not  a  servant  but  a  son,  the 
vine-dressers  say  to  each  other,  "  This  is  the  heir ;  come,  let 
us  kill  him,  and  seize  his  inheritance  ;  "  and  forthwith  proceed 
to  carry  the  nefarious  scheme  into  effect,  casting  him  out 
of  the  vineyard  as  a  place  he  had  no  right  to  enter,  and 
putting  him  ruthlessly  to  death.1  Their  calculation  is  that 
they  will  be  no  longer  troubled  with  messages  about  fruit ; 
they  will  now  enjoy  their  position  without  molestation,  and 
be  practically  not  tenants,  but  landlords.  Their  presumption 
is  based  upon  long  experience  of  impunity  in  connection 
with  their  habitual  insubordination.  They  make  the  natural 
and  common  mistake  of  imagining  that  because  sentence 
against  an  evil  work  is  not  executed  speedily  it  will  never 
be  executed  at  all ;  and  so  their  heart  is  fully  set  in  them 
to  do  evil.2  But  the  truth  is  that  they  have  only  exhausted 
the  patience  of  their  employer,  and  his  resources  for  bringing 
them  to  repentance,  and  filled  up  the  measure  of  their  iniquity 
by  committing  an  unpardonable  offence ;  and  in  accordance 
with  the  laws  by  which  the  moral  order  of  the  world  is  regu- 
lated, condign  punishment  must  speedily  overtake  them. 
This,  accordingly,  is  what  is  announced  in  the  closing  sentence 
of  the  parable,  in  which  it  is  declared  that  he  who  has  sent 
so  many  messengers  will  at  length  come  himself,  and  inflict 
on  the  criminals  a  punishment  closely  answering  to  their 
offence — consisting  in  their  ejection  from  the  vineyard  which 
they  thought  to  make  their  own,  and  their  utter  destruction. 

The  representation  is  in  accordance  with  the  facts  of 
Israel's  subsequent  history,  however  improbable  it  may  appear 
in  the  parable.  Certainly  it  does  strike  one  as  strange  that 
the  owner  of  a  vineyard  should  act  as  represented — coming 
to  judge  and  visit  with  doom  unfaithful  servants,  acts  which 
seem  appropriate  not  to  a  landowner,  but  to  a  king.  On 
this  account  this  part  of  the  parable  has  been  regarded  as  an 
allegorising  addition  by  the  evangelists.8     But  if  we  are  to 

1  In  Mark  the  act  of  murder  precedes  the  casting  out 

%  Ecdeeiastes  viii.  II.  *  So  Weiss, '  Das  Markus-Evangelium.' 


ch  iv. J  TJie  Wicked  Husbandmen.  457 

be  guided  by  such  considerations  then  the  authenticity  of  the 
whole  parable  must  be  called  in  question.  For  everything  in 
it  is  improbable  :  the  behaviour  of  the  vine-dressers,  the  long 
patience  of  the  owner  under  a  series  of  unparalleled  outrages, 
not  less  than  the  ultimate  judicial  rigour  with  which  the 
offenders  are  visited  by  the  same  person,  he  being  merely  a 
landowner  and  not  a  king.  Throughout,  the  natural  proba- 
bilities of  the  story  are  sacrificed  to  the  requirements  of  its 
moral  interpretation. 

The  account  given  in  the  parable  of  the  mission  of  the  son 
has  an  important  bearing  on  two  topics,  viz.  the   personal 
self-consciousness  of  Christ,  and  the  knowledge  possessed  by 
the  Jews  of  His  peculiar  claims.     The  son  is   described  as 
the  only  and  well-beloved  son  of  his  father,  and  it  is  natural 
to  suppose  that  as  that  son  represents  the  Speaker,  He  claims 
for  Himself  all  that  he  ascribes  to  the  former.     In  that  case 
this  text  must  be  associated  with  the  remarkable  one  in  the 
eleventh  chapter  of  Matthew  as  vindicating  for  Jesus  a  unique 
position  in  relation  to  God.    The  vine- dressers  are  represented 
as  knowing  the  son  and  heir.     Is  it  implied  that  the  men  to 
whom  the  parable  is  addressed  knew  the  Speaker  to  be  the 
Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God  ?  In  that  case  Jesus  virtually 
charges  them  with  being  on  the  point  of  putting  to  death  one 
whom  they  admitted  to  be  Divine,  or  at  least  invested  with 
Messianic  dignity.     But  probably  all  that  is  strictly  implied 
is  that  they  might  have  known  who  the  Speaker  was,  and 
would  have  known  had  their  hearts  been  pure.     In  asking 
Him  as  to  His  authority  they  affected  not  to  know  who  He 
was,  and  perhaps  it  was  not  a  mere  affectation,  for  prejudice 
and  passion  had  blinded  their  eyes.      But  they  were  not  on 
that  account  without  blame,  for  they  had  resisted  evidence 
and  crushed  down  rising  conviction.     Had  they  been  sincere 
and  single-minded,  their  hearts  would  have  yielded  to  the 
force  of  truth,  and  hailed  Jesus  as  their  king.    They  were  not, 
therefore,  sinning  in  ignorance  simply  against  the  Son  of  man, 
they  were  sinning  against  light,  and  dangerously  near  the 
mortal  sin  of  blasphemy  against  the  Holy   Ghost.     Hence 
the  severity  of  tone  in  the  sentences  appended  to  our  parable 
concerning  the  Rejected  Stone,  which  might  be  regarded  as 
forming  another  parable.     Availing  Himself  of  a  well-known 


458        The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,     [book  iu. 

text  in  a  psalm,  Jesus  happily  describes  His  own  fortunes 
and  those  of  His  hearers  in  terms  borrowed  from  the  art  of 
house-building.  The  men  who  have  just  been  compared  to 
vine-dressers  now  become  builders,  and  the  heir  cast  out  of 
the  vineyard  and  murdered  is  now  a  stone  thrown  aside  as 
useless.  But  the  new  figure  enables  the  Speaker  to  give  a 
glimpse  of  what  is  to  happen  to  Himself  after  evil  men  have 
wrought  their  worst.  The  text  from  the  psalm  declares  that 
the  stone  which  the  builders  refused  is  to  become  the  head  of  the 
corner.  The  reference  is  to  despised  Israel,  restored  to  her 
former  glory,  by  God's  grace,  a  marvel  to  all  beholders.  But 
Jesus,  appropriating  the  prophecy  to  Himself,  thereby  inti- 
mates to  His  hearers  that  in  killing  Him  they  will  not  be  done 
with  Him :  He  will  be  raised  to  a  place  of  power,  an  object  of 
admiration  to  friends,  a  source  of  dismay  to  foes.  Woe,  then 
to  the  builders  who  had  scornfully  rejected  Him.  Then  their 
case  would  not  be  that  of  men  stumbling  against  a  stone, 
as  many  had  done  in  ignorance,  sinning  against  the  Son  ol 
man  to  their  hurt  and  loss,  but  not  unpardonably.  It  would 
be  that  of  men  on  whom  a  great  stone  falls,  descending  in 
judgment  to  grind  them  to  powder. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  WEDDING-FEAST  AND  THE  WEDDING-ROBE  | 
OR,  THE   DOOM   OF  DESPISERS   AND   ABUSERS   OF  GRACE. 

JESUS,  we  are  told  by  the  Evangelist,  spake  again  to  the 
people  in  parables,  saying : 

The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  likened  unto  a  certain  king  who  made  a  marriage 
feast  for  his  son.  And  he  sent  forth  his  servants  to  call  the  called » 
to  the  feast,  and  they  would  not  come.  Again  he  sent  forth  other 
servants,  saying,  Tell  the  invited:  Behold,  I  have  made  ready  my 
dinner*  my  oxen  and  my  fed  beasts  are  slain,  and  all  things  are  ready, 
come  to  the  feast.  But  they  made  light  of  it,  and  went  their  ways, 
one  to  his  own  farm,  another  to  his  merchandise ;  and  the  rest  latd 
hold  on  his  servants,  and  entreated  them  shamefully,  and  killed  them. 
But  the  king  was  wroth?  and  he  sent  his  armies*  and  destroyed  those 
murderers,  and  burned  their  city.  Then  saith  he  to  his  servants,  The 
wedding  6  is  ready,  but  those  who  were  invited  were  not  worthy.  Go 
ye  therefore  unto  the  thoroughfares?  and  as  many  as  ye  shall  find  bid 


*  Ka\i*ai  roic  KticXriitivovc.  >  m  t 

«  ap«rrov,  the  midday  meal,  "with  which  the  series  of  marriage  festivities 

would  begin."— Meyer. 

»  The  aKovaae  of  the  T.  R.  is  omitted  in  the  best  MSS. 

«  Some  texts  have  the  singular  rh  oTpartvpa,  a  reading  probably  due  to 
a  feeling  that  armies  were  not  needed  for  such  an  expedition,  or  to  the 
knowledge  that  the  Romans  used  only  one  army  against  Jerusalem.  So 
Fritsche.  There  is  a  certain  tone  of  exaggeration  in  the  expression,  or 
perhaps  we  should  rather  say  vagueness  and  inexactitude. 

*  6  yapcc ;  the  plural  in  ver.  2  refers  to  the  festivities  connected  with 

the  wedding. 

*  rie  faEtfovc  rSv  &B&*,  literally  the  outlets  of  the  ways,  cxitus  viarum, 
Vulg.  The  word  SuZoSog  occurs  only  once  in  the  N.  T.,  and  it  is  impos- 
sible to  determine  with  certainty  what  is  meant  by  the  expression  in  the 
text     It  may  either  signify  the  roads  leading  out  from  the  town  into  the 


460         The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  hi. 

to  the  marriage  feast.— And  those  servants  going  out  into  the  roads 
gathered  together  all  as  many »  as  they  found.,  both  bad  and  good;  and 
the  wedding  chamber*  was  filled  with  guests.  But  when  the  king 
came  m  to  behold  the  guests  he  saw  there  a  man  not  clad  with  a 
weddmg garment.  And  he  saith  unto  him,  Friend,  how  earnest  thou 
in  htther  not  having  a  wedding  garment  t  And  he  was  speechless. 
Then  the  king  said  to  the  ministers?  Bind  him  hand  and  foot  and  cast 
him  out  into  the  outer  darkness;  there  shall  be  the  weeping  and  the 
gnashing  of  teeth.  For  many  are  called,  but  few  chosen.— ST.  Matt. 
xxii.  1 — 14. 

The  manner  in  which  this  parable  is  introduced  does  not 
imply  any  strict  view  as  to  the  connection  with  what  goes 
before,  and  it  is  not  likely  to  have  come  in  just  at  this  point. 
It  may  be  too  much  to  say  that  it  occupies  an  impossible 
position  ;  *  but  it  certainly  does  seem  to  interrupt  the  course 
of  the  history  as  indicated  in  the  narratives  of  the  other 
Synoptical  Evangelists.  From  internal  evidence,  however, 
it  is  manifest  that  the  parable  belongs  to  the  last  days  of 
our  Lord's  life,  and  is  to  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  memor- 
able utterances  of  the  Passion  week.6  In  its  first  part  it  has 
a  close  affinity  with  the  preceding  parable  of  the  vine-dressers, 
presenting  a  gloomy  picture  of  similar  misconduct  visited 
with  similar  doom.  That  parable  exposes  Israel's  neglect 
of  covenanted  duty;  this  her  contempt  of  God's  grace.  The 
two  are  mutually  complementary,  and  present  together  a 
full  view  of  Israel's  sin.  The  parable  now  to  be  considered 
bears  a  still  more  obvious  resemblance  to  one  already  studied 
under  the  second  division,  that  of  the  Great  Supper  in  the 
fourteenth  chapter  of  Luke.  The  common  features  are  so 
numerous  and  striking  as  to  have  led  many  to  regard  the 
two  as  one  parable  differently  reported  by  the  first  and 
third  Evangelists.6  The  opinion  is  one  which  can  hardly 
fail  to  suggest  itself,  and  yet  it  is  based  on  a  very  superficial, 

country,  or  the  crossings  of  such,  or  the  streets  leading  into  open  places 
and  squares  in  the  town.  The  general  idea  is :  places  where  men  are 
likely  to  be  found,  whether  in  town  or  in  country. 

1  ouovq.     Westcott  and  Hort  adopt  the  reading  01/c. 

1  6  vvfupujv,  the  reading  of  S.  B.  L. ;  6  yapac  in  T.  R. 

8  itaKOvotC  4   So  Keim> 

6  Keim  admits  that  the  materials  out  of  which  the  parable  is  constructed 
(by  the  Evangelist)  suit  that  late  period. 
L  This  opinion  is  held,  among  others,  by  Calvin  and  Maldonatus. 


ch.  v.]  The  Wedding- Feast  &  the  Wedding- Robe.   461 

outward  view  of  the  narratives.  Without  doubt  the  theme 
is  one  and  the  same,  but  it  is  a  theme  twice  handled  by 
the  same  artist,  and  for  diverse  purposes.  If  the  essence  or 
soul  of  a  parable  lie  in  its  didactic  drift,  then  these  two 
parables  are  broadly  distinct,  while  in  several  circumstances 
or  features  strikingly  like.  The  earlier  of  the  two  is  a  parable 
of  grace,  having  for  its  aim  to  show  what  sort  of  men  care 
for  and  shall  enjoy  the  blessings  of  the  kingdom  ;  the  later  is 
a  parable  of  judgment,  having  for  its  aim  to  show  the  doom 
of  those  who  in  any  way  despise,  abuse,  or  undervalue  these 
blessings.  There  is  indeed  both  grace  and  judgment  in  each 
parable,  but  in  very  different  proportions,  and  with  differently- 
placed  emphasis.  The  host  in  the  earlier  parable  declares 
that  the  first  invited  shall  not  taste  of  his  feast ;  that  is  the 
amount  of  the  judicial  element,  and  even  this  comes  in  not 
so  much  as  a  threatening  of  punishment,  but  rather  as  an 
indirect  intimation  that  they  are  not  the  kind  of  men  for 
whom  the  joys  of  the  kingdom  are  designed,  these  being 
reserved  for  the  hungry.  In  the  later  parable  the  host 
shows  his  grace  by  inviting  and  re-inviting  to  his  feast,  and 
even  humbling  himself  to  extol  the  entertainment  in  prospect 
with  a  view  to  excite  desire;  but  all  this  takes  place  only 
to  enhance  the  culpability  of  those  who  after  all  refuse  to 
come,  and  to  justify  the  severity  with  which  they  are  visited. 

The  difference  just  indicated  in  the  didactic  drift  of  the 
two  parables  explains  at  once  their  resemblances  and  their 
points  of  contrast.  Common  to  both  are  a  feast,  a  refusal 
from  the  first  invited,  and  a  subsequent  invitation  to  a  lower 
class.  These  resemblances  arise  out  of  the  fact  that  the  two 
parables  deal  in  different  ways  and  to  different  intents  with 
the  grace  of  the  kingdom  ;  the  one  showing  who  are  its  chosen 
objects,  the  other  the  danger  of  despising  it.  A  feast  is  a 
most  appropriate  emblem  of  the  kingdom  as  a  kingdom  of 
grace,  likely  to  be  employed  as  often  as  there  was  occasion  to 
speak  of  that  topic.  The  refusal  of  the  first  invited  shows 
the  tendency  of  preoccupation  to  produce  indifference,  and 
supplies  a  motive  for  inviting  persons  not  at  first  contemplated 
as  guests,  though  more  likely  from  their  circumstances  to 
welcome  the  benefit  put  within  their  reach.  That  final 
invitation  thus  brought  about,  for  the  first  time  brings  into 


462        The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  hi. 

light  the  true  genius  of  grace,  accrediting  it  with  a  benignant 
will  to  make  its  blessings  free  to  all,  and  if  possible  freest 
to  those  who  most  urgently  need  them.     On  the  other  hand, 
the  parables  differ  in  these  respects,  that  in  the  earlier  the 
feast  is  given  by  a  private  individual,  in  the  later  by  a  king  to 
his  subjects,  and  on  a  very  important  occasion — the  marriage 
of  his  son ;  in   the   one  the   invitation  to   the   first  invited 
is  not  repeated  after  it  has  been  refused,  in  the  other  it  is 
repeated  with  such  descriptive  accompaniments  as  are  fitted 
to  awaken  desire ;    in   the  one  the  first  invited   are  simply 
indifferent,  in  the  other  they  not  only  show  indifference,  but 
some  of  them  at  least  proceed  to  deeds  of  violence,  and  these 
are  visited  with  violent  penalties.      All  these  variations  are 
accounted    for   by   the   simple   consideration   that   the  later 
parable  is  a  parable  of  judgment.     The  feast  is  one  given 
by  a  king  on  a  solemn  occasion,  because  such  a  feast  gives 
scope  for  a  kind  of  offences  and  of  punishments  which  could 
have  no  place  in  connection  with  a  private  feast.     It  is  a 
feast  possessing  political  significance,  presence  at  which  is  a 
mark  of  loyalty,  absence  from  which  indicates  a  spirit   of 
disaffection    which    is   sure   to   manifest   itself    in   deeds   of 
rebellion,  making  vengeance   inevitable.      The   invitation  is 
repeated  to  make  the  king's  patience  conspicuous,  to  bring 
more  fully  into  the  light  the  latent  hostility  of  his  subjects, 
and  to  exhibit  their  persistent  refusal  as  utterly  inexcusable. 
Acts  of  violence  are  ascribed  to  some  of  the  invited  because 
such  enormities  were  the  actual  reply  of  Israel's  represent- 
atives to  God's  overtures  of  love,  and  the  mention  of  them 
prepares  the   hearer   for  sympathising  with   the  doom  pro- 
nounced against  them.     That  doom  is  inexorably  severe,  but 
it  is  only  an  exact  anticipation  of  the  fact,  and  a  parable 
setting  forth  the  judgment  of  Heaven  on  contempt  of  grace 
could  not,  if  it  aimed  at  adequate  statement,  say  less.     In  all 
these   respects   the  variations   are   only  such   as  we  should 
expect  from  any  expert  in  the  use  of  the  parabolic  style. 
And  the  method  of  variation  is  also  what  we  should  expect 
such  an  one  to  employ  in  such  a  case ;  that  is,  the  adaptation 
of  an  old  theme  to  a  new  case,  rather  than  the  invention  of 
an  entirely  new  theme.     The  common  theme  forms  the  link 
of  connection  between  two  parables,  both  of  which  relate  to 


ch.  v.]   The  Weddiiig- Feast  &  the  Wedding- Robe.  463 

grace ;  the  variations  in  the  later  form  from  the  earlier  point 
it  out  as  a  parable  setting  forth  the  judgment  of  grace 
despised.  What  is  common  gives  emphasis  to  what  is 
peculiar,  and  bids  us  mark  what  it  is  that  is  judged.  Why 
should  we  hesitate  to  ascribe  such  skilful  variation  for  so 
important  a  purpose  to  the  Great  Master  rather  than  to  the 
Evangelist?  Why  refuse  to  Christ  the  use  of  a  method 
which  seems  not  to  have  been  unknown  even  to  the  Rabbis  ? l 
One  point  in  the  variation  of  the  later  from  the  earlier 
parable  we  have  purposely  overlooked  in  the  foregoing 
remarks  ;  that,  viz.,  relating  to  the  guest  without  a  wedding 
robe.  In  Luke's  parable  there  is  nothing  but  welcome  for 
the  poor  without  exception,  while  in  Matthew's,  judicial 
rigour  is  exercised  even  on  one  of  them  who  is  found  unsuit- 
ably attired.  At  this  point  the  difference  between  the  two 
parables  in  didactic  scope  becomes  specially  apparent.  We 
feel  that  such  a  feature  would  altogether  mar  the  beauty  of 
the  former,  whose  aim  throughout,  and  in  every  phrase,  is  to 
emphasise  the  graciousness  of  the  kingdom.  In  the  case  of 
the  latter,  on  the  other  hand,  the  wedding-robe  scene,  howevei 
unwelcome,  is  in  keeping  with  the  general  tenor  of  the  story. 

1  Wiinsche  cites  no  less  than  three  parables  from  the  Talmud  more  or 
less  like  the  one  we  are  considering.  The  first  is  of  a  king  who  asks 
guests  to  a  feast,  not  telling  them  when  it  was  to  be,  but  bidding  them 
prepare  for  it  by  bathing,  washing  their  garments,  &c.  Those  anxious  to 
be  present  watch  at  the  door  of  the  palace  for  the  symptoms  of  the  feast 
approaching ;  the  easy-minded  go  about  their  business  and  are  taken  by 
surprise,  and  come  in  every-day  attire  to  be  rejected.  The  moral  is — 
Watch,  for  ye  know  not  the  day  of  death.  The  second  is  of  a  king  who 
invited  to  a  feast  and  bade  the  guests  bring  each  a  seat.  The  guests 
brought  all  sorts  of  things — carpets,  stools,  pieces  of  wood,  &c.  The  king 
ordered  that  each  should  sit  on  what  he  had  brought.  Those  who  brought 
poor  seats  complained  :  Were  these  seats  for  a  palace?  The  king  replied, 
they  had  themselves  to  blame.  Moral — we  shall  fare  as  we  deserve. 
The  third  is  of  a  king  who  distributed  costly  robes  among  his  servants  ; 
the  wise  folded  them  up  and  took  care  of  them,  the  foolish  wore  them. 
The  garments  were  demanded  back  ;  the  wise  render  up  their  trust  whh 
approbation ;  the  foolish  had  to  send  the  garments  to  the  washing,  and 
were  put  in  prison.  The  garment  is  the  soul  given  to  man  by  God,  pure, 
and  to  be  rendered  back  pure.  '  Neue  Beitr'age  zur  Erlauterung  del 
Evangelien  aus  Talmud  und  Midrasch,'  p.  252.  For  the  first  of  thes* 
parables  vide  also  Meuschea,  '  Nov.  Test,  ex  Talmud  illustratura.' 


464  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  hi. 

It,  too,  is  a  story  of  grace  indeed,  but  of  grace  unworthily 
met,  and  manifesting  itself  in  judicial  severity  against  those 
who  commit  the  wrong.  And  just  because  it  is  a  parable  of 
judgment,  there  must  be  judgment  whenever  it  is  called  for. 
There  must  be  no  partiality.  If  the  first  invited  are  to  be 
punished  because  they  sin  against  grace  in  one  way,  the 
guests  invited  in  the  second  place  must  be  punished  if  they 
sin  against  grace  in  another  way.  The  relevancy  of  the 
wedding-robe  scene  in  a  parable  of  judgment  vindicating 
grace  against  injury  can  be  legitimately  denied  only  if  it 
be  impossible  for  the  recipients  of  grace  to  commit  any  offence 
against  it,  which,  as  we  shall  see,  is  far  enough  from  being 
the  case.  The  lesson  taught  in  the  second  scene  is  thoroughly 
germane  to  the  lesson  taught  in  the  first.  The  first  shows 
the  judgment  of  those  who  despise  and  reject  grace,  the 
second  the  judgment  of  those  who  receive  it,  but  in  a  disre- 
spectful manner.  The  only  question  that  can  reasonably  be 
raised  is  whether  it  is  likely  that  Christ  would  combine  the 
two  lessons  in  one  parable,  and  speak  them  at  the  same  time 
and  to  the  same  audience.  That  is  a  question  affecting  the 
literary  rather  than  the  doctrinal  character  of  the  parable.  It 
may  plausibly  be  alleged  that  literary  tact  would  dictate  that 
only  one  of  these  lessons  should  be  taught  at  one  time,  so  as 
to  insure  that  it  should  receive  due  attention  ;  and  as  no  such 
want  of  tact  may  be  ascribed  to  Christ,  it  may  hence  be 
inferred  that  the  combination  is  due  to  the  Evangelist: 
another  instance  of  Matthew's  habit  of  joining  together  sayings 
of  kindred  doctrinal  import.  If  such  were  the  case,  we 
should  have  to  admit  that  the  joining  has  been  very  well 
done.  But  it  is  so  well  done,  the  dovetailing  is  so  complete, 
and  the  parable  is  so  manifestly  a  doctrinal  unity,  that 
we  are  constrained  to  doubt  the  alleged  want  of  tact,  and 
the  inference  founded  on  it.  Why  should  not  Christ  have 
joined  these  two  lessons  together  ?  Each  gives  point  to  the 
other,  rather  than  weakens  its  force.  The  second,  taken 
along  with  the  first,  says,  that  so  determined  is  God  that 
His  grace  shall  not  be  scorned,  that  even  those  who  receive  it 
shall  be  punished  for  disrespect.  The  first,  taken  along  with 
the  second,  says,  if  God  be  so  severe  towards  those  who 
despise  His  grace,  let  those  who  receive  it,  but  not  with  duo 


ca  v.]   The  Wedding- Feast  &  the  Wedding-Robe.  465 

reverence,  beware.  The  two  together  vindicate  the  Divine 
impartiality,  and  form  a  complete  doctrine  on  the  subject  to 
which  they  relate. 

With  these  preliminary  observations  we  proceed  to  consider 
in  detail  the  two  parts  of  the  parable  in  which  these  distinct 
lessons  are  taught. 

I.  The  judgment  of  grace  despised  set  forth  in 

THE  FIRST  SCENE  (vers.  I — 9). 

The  emblem  selected  to  represent  the  grace  of  the  King- 
dom is  a  fit  one.  It  is  that  of  a  marriage-feast.  The  term 
ydfxovs  might  indeed  mean  any  great  feast  resembling  a  wed 
ding-feast  in  magnitude  and  importance ;  as,  for  example,  a 
feast  celebrating  the  event  of  an  heir  to  an  estate  arriving  at 
his  majority,  or  of  a  king  delivering  his  kingdom  into  the 
hands  of  his  son.1  But  the  proper  sense  of  the  word  is  a 
marriage  feast,  and  we  can  have  the  less  hesitation  in  ascribing 
to  it  this  meaning  here,  that  the  same  emblem  was  employed 
by  Jesus  at  other  times  to  denote  the  kingdom  of  heaven, 
especially  on  the  memorable  occasion  when  He  was  interro- 
gated concerning  the  neglect  of  fasting  by  His  disciples.  No 
fitter  emblem  could  be  found  at  once  to  exhibit  in  brightest 
lustre  the  benignity  of  God,  and  to  test  the  spirit  of  men.  It 
suggests  the  most  intimate  union  possible  between  the  Head 
of  the  Church  and  the  members,  that  of  wedlock ;  for  the 
guests  are  also  the  Bride.  And  if  men  refuse  an  invitation 
to  a  marriap-e-feast,  what  favour  are  they  likely  to  accept  ? — 
what  more  certain  indication  of  ill-will  can  there  be  than 
such  refusal  ? 

Those  who  are  invited  to  the  wedding-feast  are  represented 
as  persons  already  invited.  The  servants  are  sent  forth  to 
call  tovs  KCKkruxivovs.  This  term  connects  the  New  Testament 
history  of  Israel  with  that  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  denotes 
the  position  in  which  the  chosen  race  were  placed  by  the 
ministry  of  the   prophets.     For   the   prophets   performed   a 

1  In  Esther  (ix.  22)  the  word  yafiot  is  used  for  the  feast  by  which  the 
Jews  commemorated  their  deliverance  from  the  plot  of  Haman.  Kuinoel 
thinks  the  occasion  referred  to  in  the  text  is  that  of  the  delivery  of  the 
kingdom  into  the  hands  of  the  son.  Meyer,  on  the  other  hand,  con- 
tends that  ya/ioi  is  never  used  for  anything  else  than  a  marriage-feast. 

H  H 


466  7'ke  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [[book  hi. 

double  function.  They  were  on  the  one  hand  servants  of  moral 
law,  demanding  in  God's  name  the  fruit  of  genuine  righteous- 
ness ;  and  on  the  other  servants  of  the  promise  or  purpose  of 
grace,  preaching  under  various  forms  a  Messianic  Hope,  an 
ideal  bliss  to  come  in  the  end  of  the  days.  Through  this 
eloquent  ministry  of  the  Better  Hope  the  people  of  Israel 
were  called  to  participation  in  the  Messianic  wedding-feast. 
But  they  were  merely  called  ;  while  the  fulfilment  of  Messianic 
prophecy  tarried,  it  could  not  be  ascertained  how  the  offered 
privilege  would  be  received.  Their  attitude  towards  the 
prophetic  ministry  of  righteousness  could  be,  and  was,  ascer- 
tained at  once.  Throughout  her  whole  history  the  chosen 
people  showed  plainly  that  the  Divine  demand  for  righteousness 
was  one  she  did  not  mean  to  comply  with  ;  and  the  damning 
verdict  of  the  record  is  endorsed  in  the  preceding  parable  of 
the  Vinedressers.  But  all  the  while  she  might  flatter  herself 
that  she  was  welcoming  the  Messianic  Hope,  and  looking 
with  eager  expectancy  for  the  advent  of  the  era  when  all  the 
glowing  ideals  of  the  prophets  should  be  realised.  Whether 
that  was  so  indeed  could  only  be  tested  when  the  era  of 
fulfilment  arrived,  and  the  parable  before  us  describes  the 
result  of  the  experiment.  The  test  is  supposed  to  apply  not 
merely  to  the  generation  who  witnessed  the  fulfilment,  but  to 
all  the  generations  going  before  to  whom  the  Messianic  pro- 
phecies had  been  addressed.  Here,  as  in  the  last  parable, 
the  moral  solidarity  of  all  the  generations  of  Israel  is  recog- 
nised, and  the  spirit  of  the  past  is  judged  from  the  behaviour 
of  the  present.  It  is  assumed  that  former  generations  would 
have  acted  as  the  one  then  living,  if  placed  in  the  same  cir- 
cumstances. Therefore  the  servants  are  represented  as  calling 
the  called,  though  the  called  of  the  prophetic  era  were  distinct 
from  the  called  of  the  era  of  fulfilment. 

The  '  servants '  are  Jesus  and  His  disciples.  The  call 
covers  the  period  of  Christ's  personal  ministry,  and  its  sub- 
stance is — The  kingdom  of  heaven  in  all  the  fulness  of  grace 
is  here ;  come,  and  participate  in  its  joys.  The  Baptist  we 
do  not  include  among  the  servants,  because  he  was  a  minister 
of  law  rather  than  of  grace ;  like  all  the  prophets  doubtless 
performing  a  function  in  relation  to  the  Messianic  Hope, 
still  belonging  in  spirit  and  tendency  to  the  era  of  expectation 


Ch.  v]  2 'he  Wedding-Feast  &  the  Wedding- Rode.   467 

rather  than  to  the  era  of  fulfilment.  He  had  his  place  in  thw 
last  parable  as  one  of  the  many  messengers  whom  God  sent  t<? 
demand  fruit ;  but  he  has  no  place  in  this,  except  as  one  ol 
those  through  whom  the  first  preparatory  call  was  addressed 
to  Israel.  On  the  other  hand,  we  have  no  hesitation  in 
including  Jesus  among  the  servants  who  are  sent  forth  to 
invite  the  guests  to  the  feast,  long  expected,  now  at  hand. 
Though  He  be  the  son  whose  marriage  is  about  to  be  cele- 
brated, yet  is  He  also  a  servant,  the  chief  of  the  callers  to  the 
feast.  There  may  be  an  incongruity  in  this  union  of  two 
such  opposite  characters  in  the  same  person,  but  it  is  not 
greater  than  that  resulting  from  the  same  parties  being 
at  once  bride  and  guests.  However  incongruous,  both 
combinations  are  matters  of  fact ;  nor  do  they  mar  the 
propriety  of  the  parabolic  narrative,  for  neither  is  allowed  to 
appear  therein.  So  far  as  the  parable  is  concerned,  the  son 
and  the  servant  are  distinct,  as  are  also  the  bride  and  the 
guests,  though  in  reality  the  two  in  either  case  are  one. 

The  result  of  the  invitation  to  the  feast,  briefly  told,  is  that 
the  invited  are  not  inclined  to  come.  In  these  mild,  simple 
terms  does  Jesus  describe  the  reception  He  had  met  with  at 
the  hands  of  His  countrymen,  as  the  Herald  of  the  kingdom 
of  grace.  The  account  stands  in  striking  contrast  with  the 
view  presented  in  the  last  parable  of  the  reception  given  to  the 
last  messenger  of  the  owner  of  the  vineyard,  his  son  and  heir, 
How  is  this  contrast  to  be  explained  ?  Partly  by  the  con- 
sideration that  the  two  parables  contemplate  the  history  0/ 
Israel  from  different  positions,  the  one  looking  on  it  from  the 
Old  Testament  view  point,  and  the  other  from  the  New.  In 
the  one  case,  what  is  done  to  the  last  messenger  forms  the 
climax  of  a  long  series  of  iniquities,  and  is  therefore  drawn  in 
as  dark  colours  as  possible,  and  made  the  ground  of  Israel's 
doom.  In  the  other  the  New  Testament  history  of  Israel 
ceases  to  be  the  background  and  comes  into  the  foreground, 
and  so  resolves  itself  into  several  distinct  scenes,  in  which,  in 
accordance  with  fact,  she  gets  a  second  chance  after  her 
misbehaviour  towards  the  '  son '  of  the  former  parable,  before 
being  visited  with  her  final  doom.  This  second  chance  coin- 
cides with  the  ministry  of  the  apostles,  after  Christ's  death 
and  final  departure  from  the  earth.     And  as  Israel  was  to 

HH  2 


468        The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  nt 

get  this  second  chance,  a  signal  proof  of  the  patience  of  God, 
and  clearing  His  final  severity  of  all  appearance  of  undue 
rigour,  it  was  fitting  that  her  misbehaviour  towards  the  first 
callers  should  be  described  in  mitigated  terms,  to  leave  room, 
as  it  were,  for  a  further  day  of  grace.  Had  the  first  callers 
in  this  parable  been  treated  as  the  heir  was  treated  in  the 
last,  the  proper  sequel  had  been  not  a  second  invitation, 
but  judgment.1  But  this  explanation  does  not  go  to  the 
root  of  the  matter.  It  amounts  to  this,  that  the  structure 
of  the  parable  required  the  facts  as  to  the  reception  given 
to  the  first  callers  to  be  understated,  implying  of  course 
that  the  facts  were  worse  than  represented.  The  true  key 
to  the  solution  of  the  difficulty  is  to  bear  in  mind  the 
different  capacities  in  which  Jesus  acts  in  the  two  parables. 
In  the  Vine-dressers  He,  like  all  His  predecessors,  is  a 
prophet  of  moral  law,  demanding  in  God's  name  true 
righteousness.  In  the  Wedding  Feast  He  is  a  minister  of 
grace  preaching  the  gospel  of  the  kingdom.  Now  His  re- 
ception in  these  two  distinct  capacities  was  respectively  as 
represented.  It  was  as  a  prophet  of  duty  that  He  was 
maltreated  by  His  countrymen.  He  provoked  them  to  wrath 
by  His  exposure  of  their  sham  sanctities  in  punctilious  per- 
formance of  ritual  ablutions,  fastings,  prayers,  tithe-paying, 
&c,  accompanied  by  scandalous  neglect  of  the  great  matters 
of  the  law.  The  key  to  the  crucifixion  is  utterances  by  the 
Prophet  of  Nazareth  such  as  those  collected  together  in  the 
great  antipharisaic  discourse  in  the  twenty-fourth  chapter  of 
Matthew.  On  the  other  hand,  the  reception  given  to  Jesus 
as  the  Minister  of  grace  was  just  that  indicated  in  our  parable. 
He  invited  His  countrymen  to  a  great  feast  and  they  would 
not  come.  They  did  not  hate  Him  or  visit  Him  with  violence 
for  His  invitations.  They  simply  were  not  attracted  by  what 
He  offered,  and  turned  heedless  away,  as  from  an  idle  dreamer. 
At  times  the  boon  He  held  up  to  view  for  a  moment  appeared 
tempting, — a  kingdom  and  a  kingship  of  this  world,  real  and 
worth  having ;  but  the  deluded  soon  discovered  that  they 
were  mistaken,  to  their  disappointment  and  disgust.  In  this 
indifference  towards  the  Minister  of  grace  the  people  of  Israel 
were  far  less  culpable  than  in  their  hostility  to  the  Prophet  of 

1  The  above  is,  in  effect,  Goebel's  view. 


ch.  v.]  The  Wedding-Feast  &  the  Wedding- Robe.   469 

law.  For  righteousness  was  a  thing  familiar  to  them.  It 
was  their  own  watchword  and  '  way.'  But  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,  as  Jesus  presented  it,  was  a  new  phenomenon,  strange 
puzzling  even  to  honest  minds,  even  to  the  Baptist  himself. 
Shyness,  doubt,  misunderstanding  for  a  time  were  pardonable, 
and  were  so  regarded  by  Jesus.  He  did  not  denounce  those 
who  stood  in  doubt  of  this  new  movement.  He  only  said, 
"  Blessed  is  he  that  is  not  offended  in  Me."  The  parable 
before  us  is  in  full  sympathy  with  that  considerate,  gentle 
utterance.  Of  those  to  whom  the  Author  of  the  parable 
preached  the  gospel  of  the  kingdom  it  is  said  simply  they 
were  not  willing  to  come.  And  their  unwillingness  is,  by  im- 
plication, treated  as  a  pardonable  misunderstanding  when  the 
king  is  represented  as  sending  forth  other  servants  to  renew 
the  invitations,  with  instructions  to  appraise  the  feast,  so  as 
to  awaken  desire.  It  is  a  notable  instance  of  the  'sweet 
reasonableness '  of  Christ,  as  well  as  a  faithful  reflection  of 
the  patience  of  God. 

The  '  other  servants,'  who  receive  this  new  commission, 
are  of  course  the  apostles,  whom  Jesus  had  chosen  to  carry 
on  His  work  after  He  left  the  world,  and  of  whose  agency  He 
could  not  but  think  much  at  this  time  when  His  own  end 
was  so  near.  The  kingdom  of  heaven  was  not  to  disappear 
when  He  personally  left  the  world  ;  it  would  go  on  its  course 
in  spite  of  all  that  men  might  do  to  Himself,  not  to  say  in 
consequence  thereof,  and  the  preaching  of  His  companions 
whom  He  had  sought  to  embue  with  His  spirit,  would  give 
Israel  another  opportunity  of  receiving  thankfully  the  things 
freely  bestowed  by  God.  Very  notable,  in  connection  with 
the  mission  of  the  apostles,  is  the  special  direction  given  to 
the  second  set  of  '  callers ' :  "  Say  to  those  invited,  '  Behold, 
I  have  prepared  my  dinner,  my  oxen  and  fed  beasts  slain, 
and  all  things  ready ;  come  to  the  feast.' "  The  second 
callers '  are  not  merely  to  invite  to,  they  are  to  commend 
the  feast,  with  a  view  to  create  desire.  The  fact  suggests  a 
contrast  between  the  ministry  of  Christ  and  that  of  His 
apostles.  The  apostles  differed  from  their  Master  in  two 
respects.  They  were  more  aggressive  or  urgent  in  their 
manner  of  preaching,  and  they  preached  a  more  developed 
gospel.    Jesus  went  forth  into  the  world  and  said  quietly 


47°         The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,  [book  hi. 

The  kingdom  is  come.  Nor  did  He  explain  fully  or  elabor- 
ately wherein  the  kingdom  consisted,  and  what  blessings  it 
brought;  at  most  He  conveyed  only  hints  of  these  by 
aphorism  or  parable,  or  by  kind  words  and  deeds  to  sinfuv 
and  sorrowful  men.  He  did  not  strive,  or  cry,  nor  did  any 
one  hear  His  voice  in  the  streets.  He  did  not  aim  at 
teaching  the  multitude  the  mysteries  of  the  kingdom,  but 
spoke  these  into  the  ear  of  a  select  few.  These  privileged 
ones,  on  the  other  hand,  when  the  time  arrived  for  commencing 
their  apostolic  career,  did  not  appear  before  the  world  as 
imitators  of  their  Master.  They  did  not  affect  His  calm, 
lofty  tone,  they  did  not  speak  in  parables,  they  did  not  select 
from  the  crowd  a  band  of  disciples  to  be  taught  an  esoteric 
doctrine.  They  became  street  preachers  in  temper  and  style, 
they  spoke  from  the  house-top,  they  addressed  the  crowd, 
they  proclaimed  a  more  explicit,  definite,  common-place 
gospel  of  forgiveness  and  salvation  from  wrath,  talked  as  it 
were  of  oxen  and  fed  beasts  and  the  other  accompaniments 
of  a  feast,  with  an  eloquence  less  dignified  but  more  fitted 
to  impress  the  million  with  a  sense  of  the  rfches  of  Divine 
grace} 

And  what  was  to  be  the  result  of  this  new  aggressive  declam- 
atory ministry  ?  Surely  it  will  be  more  satisfactory  than 
that  of  the  first  servants,  to  which  all  but  a  few  simple  folks 
turned  a  deaf  ear  ?  Alas,  no  !  The  result  of  this  second 
effort  was  to  be  worse  rather  than  better.  The  majority  were 
to  imitate  the  indifference  of  their  predecessors,  and  the  rest 
were  to  be  guilty  of  insolence  and  violence  towards  the  King's 
messengers.  Such  is  the  picture  presented  in  the  words 
of  our  parable.  "  They  went  away,  taking  no  heed  ;  one 
to  his  own  field,  another  to  his  merchandise,  and  the  rest 
laid  hold  of  his  servants,  and  treated  them  shamefully  and 
killed  them."  It  is  in  a  few  words  a  correct  description  of 
the  treatment  received  by  the  apostles  at  the  hands  of  the 
Jews.  The  bulk  of  the  people,  preoccupied  with  secular 
affairs,  finding   their   satisfaction   in    possessions,   or   in    the 

1  Beyond  this  general  idea  no  significance  is  to  be  attached  to  the  Tavpot 
and  oirtoru.  Theophylact  makes  the  ravpot  signify  the  Old  Testament, 
and  the  mnard  the  New.  The  interpretation  in  the  latter  case  he  justifies  by 
the  consideration  that  loaves  are  offered  on  the  altar  which  are  properly 
railed  nncrrd,  as  made  from  wheat. 


ch.  v.j    The  Wedding-Feast  &  the  Wedding-Robe.  471 

pursuit  of  gain,1  took  no  interest  in  the  spiritual  goods  which 
the  preachers  of  the  gospel  brought  within  their  reach.  The 
heads  of  the  nation,  whom  we  may  assume  to  be  represented 
by  '  the  others '  in  the  parable,  persecuted  the  missionaries 
of  the  new  religion,  fearing  evil  consequences  from  its  progress 
to  the  established  civil  and  religious  order.  So  we  learn  from 
the  familiar  narratives  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  That 
Christ  should  predict  so  distinctly  beforehand  what  was  to 
happen  cannot  appear  surprising,  as  it  scarcely  needed  pro- 
phetic prescience  to  enable  Him  to  do  so.  He  had  but  to 
reason  from  what  happened  to  the  Master  to  what  would 
happen  to  disciples.  For  though  it  be  true  that  the  indignities 
which  He  suffered  at  the  hands  of  men  came  upon  Him  rather 
as  a  prophet  of  law  than  as  a  minister  of  grace,  yet  His 
experience  contained  ominous  indications  of  the  antagonism 
which  might  be  provoked  even  by  the  bringer  of  good  tidings 
when  he  involuntarily  offended  against  the  prejudices  of  his 
hearers.  How  significant  in  this  connection  the  incidents  in 
the  synagogue  of  Nazareth  recorded  by  the  Evangelist  Luke.2 
Jesus  discourses  on  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord  in  '  words 
of  grace '  which  excite  general  admiration  ;  yet  in  a  few 
minutes  after  His  life  is  endangered  by  one  or  two  historical 
references,  which  wound  the  self-love  of  villagers  animated 
by  the  bigoted  exclusive  spirit  of  their  race.  That  sudden 
ebullition  of  patriotic  wrath  was  prophetic  of  the  fate  which 
awaited  the  heralds  of  the  new  era  of  grace  at  the  hands  ot 
Jewish  pride.  For,  however  acceptable  the  good  tidings 
might  be  in  themselves,  it  would  be  impossible  to  publish 
them  without  in  some  way  giving  offence.  And  as  time  went 
on  offences  would  increase.  If  the  Nazarenes  persecuted 
their  fellow-townsman,  the  Jewish  people  were  sure  to  perse- 
cute more  bitterly  His  followers  while  engaged  in  their 
apostolic  calling,  and  that  on  account  precisely  of  those 
characteristics  by  which  their  ministry  was  distinguished 
from  His ;  its  greater  aggressiveness,  and  its  more  explicit 
style  of  announcement.  More  energetic  action  would  provoke 
more  violent  reaction,  and  a  more  developed  and  intelligible 
gospel  would  provoke  more  emphatic  contradiction.     When 

1  The  words  u'c  rhv  Wwv  iypdv  suggest  the  idea  of  landed  property. 
•  Luke  iv.  16 


472         The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,   [book  hi. 

the  gospel  of  the  kingdom,  set  forth  in  enigmatic  aphorisms, 
took  the  form  of  a  gospel  of  salvation  by  a  crucified  man, 
offences  would  not  be  wanting !  It  was  a  matter  of  course, 
therefore,  that  the  second  class  of  servants  should  be  insulted, 
assaulted,  imprisoned,  and  even  put  in  danger  of  their  lives. 
And  it  was  natural  that,  in  a  parable  setting  forth  the 
judgment  of  Israel  for  her  contempt  of  grace,  allusion  should 
be  made  to  these  prospective  experiences  to  make  it  clear 
that,  on  every  ground,  the  guilty  nation  was  ripe  for  doom. 
For  a  people  not  only  persistently  negligent  of  duty,  and 
practising  habitual  violence  against  those  who  reminded  it 
of  its  obligations,  but  equally  insensible  to  God's  overtures 
of  mercy,  and  equally  insolent  towards  the  ministers  of 
reconciliation,  what  could  be  hoped  ?  Even  Paul,  patriot 
though  he  was,  capable  of  wishing  himself  accursed  for  his 
countrymen's  sake,  was  forced  to  despair,  and  to  describe 
Israel  as  a  people  which  despising  the  riches  of  God's  grace, 
forbearance,  and  long-suffering,  and  misunderstanding  their 
meaning  with  a  hardened,  impenitent  heart,  treasured  up  for 
itself  wrath  in  the  day  of  wrath  and  of  the  revelation  of  the 
righteous  judgment  of  God.1 

This  wrath  the  parable  proceeds  to  describe  in  these  terms : 
"  But  the  king  was  angry ;  and  sending  his  armies,  he 
destroyed  those  murderers  and  burned  their  city." 2  The 
words  foreshadow  the  ruin  of  the  Jewish  state  and  the  holy 
city,  a  generation  later,  by  the  might  of  imperial  Rome, 
employed  by  Providence  to  punish  Israel  for  her  sins.  It  is 
startling  to  find  so  distinct  an  anticipation  of  the  event  in  a 
parable  spoken  so  long  beforehand.  But  Christ  says  here 
only  what  he  repeated  with  equal  distinctness  in  the  discourse 
on  the  last  things  in  a  subsequent  chapter  of  the  same  Gospel ; ' 
even  as  in  the  description  of  the  fate  awaiting  the  apostles 
He  but  briefly  hints  what,  on  various  occasions,  He  had 
already  said  to  His  disciples  by  way  of  forewarning,*  and  was 
to  say  again  in  the  farewell  discourse.5 

The  concluding  sentence  of  the  first  part  of  the  parable 
intimates  the  king's  resolve  to  transfer  his  favour  from  those 
who  had  been  guilty  of  such  grievous  misconduct  to  such  as 

1  Rom.  ii.  4,  5.  >  Ver.  7.  *  Matt.  xxiv. 

*  Matt,  x.,  xvi.  *  John  xvL 


ch.  v.]   The  Wedding-Feast  &  the  Wedding-Robe.  473 

were  more  likely  to  value  them.  This  purpose,  while  an  act 
of  grace  towards  those  next  to  be  called,  is  an  act  of  judg- 
ment towards  the  first  invited.  It  is  the  natural  sequel  of 
the  dread  visitation  spoken  of  just  before.  Israel,  ruined  as 
a  nation,  is  at  the  same  time  to  be  cast  oft  as  a  people  ;  as 
no  longer  worthy  of  the  prerogatives  and  privileges  of  the 
elect  race.  Of  these  indeed  she  had  never  been  worthy,  but 
in  view  of  her  contempt  of  God's  grace,  and  judicial  blindness 
in  regard  to  her  spiritual  opportunities,  her  demerit  might  be 
spoken  of  with  an  emphasis  that  in  other  circumstances 
might  appear  excessive.  By  such  behaviour  as  the  parable 
depicts,  the  Jewish  people,  as  Paul  declared  in  the  synagogue 
of  Antioch,  judged  themselves  unworthy  of  eternal  life,  and 
justified  the  transference  of  despised  privilege  to  the  Gentiles.1 
Of  this  transference  our  parable  speaks  in  very  general  terms. 
"  Go  ye,"  says  the  king  to  his  servants,  "  to  the  outlets  of  the 
ways,  and  call  to  the  marriage  feast  whomsoever  ye  find." 
We  have  already  alluded  to  the  vagueness  of  the  expression 
employed  to  denote  the  quarters  where  the  new  guests  are 
to  be  found.  Much  difference  of  opinion  prevails  as  to  its 
meaning,  and  many  interpreters  express  their  views  in  a  tone 
of  dogmatism  which  is  altogether  unwarrantable.  Some  are 
sure  that  the  reference  is  to  the  streets  or  squares  of  a  city,2 
others  pronounce  with  great  confidence  in  favour  of  the 
country  roads,  or  crossings  of  the  highways.3  One  asserts 
that  the  city  in  which  the  new  guests  are  to  be  sought  is  the 
same  as  that  which  is  to  be  burned  ;  4  another  informs  us  that 
it  is  another  city,  that  of  the  king ;  "  not  Jerusalem,  but  God's 
world."6  There  is  nothing  in  the  text  to  justify  such  confid- 
ence, or  to  help  us  to  a  certain  conclusion.  The  expression 
is  vague ;  perhaps  it  is  purposely  so ;  it  may  have  been 
selected  to  embrace  in  its  scope  the  localities  visited  in  the 
two  missions  to  the  poor  in  Luke's  parable — the  streets  and 
lanes,  and  likewise  the  highways  and  hedges.  The  single 
mission  to  the  poor  in  Matthew's  parable  is  another  point  in 
which  it  differs  from  Luke's.  Both  have  a  double  mission  ; 
but   Matthew's   is    to   the   first   called,   while   Luke's  is   to 

1  Acts  xiii.  46.  *  Kypke,  Kuinoel,  Trench,  See, 

*  Fritsehe  after  Fischer,  De  Wette,  Meyer,  Goebel. 
•Trench,  *  Alford. 


474  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  hi, 

those  called  in  the  second  place.  This  difference  is  to  be 
accounted  for  in  tne  same  way  as  all  the  rest ;  viz.  by  the 
consideration  that  the  parable  before  us  is  a  parable  of  judg- 
ment. Its  aim  is  not  to  set  forth  with  distinctness  and 
emphasis  God's  purpose  of  grace  to  the  outlying  peoples,  but 
to  justify  the  withdrawal  of  His  grace  from  the  chosen  race. 
Therefore  the  calling  of  those  without  is  referred  to  only 
in  indefinite  terms  :  even  as  in  the  close  of  the  parable  of  the 
Vine-dressers,  where  it  is  said  that  the  kingdom  of  God  should 
be  taken  from  Israel,  and  given  to  a  nation  (e?0v«)  yielding 
the  fruits  thereof.1  We  shall  best  reflect  the  spirit  of  the 
parable  by  allowing  the  terms  to  remain  indefinite,  and  not 
binding  them  down  to  any  particular  reference.  If  the 
Speaker  had  meant  to  fix  the  reference  down  either  to  town 
or  country,  to  the  Jewish  or  the  Gentile  world,  He  could  easily 
have  done  so,  as  in  the  parable  of  the  Supper,  where  one  set 
of  phrases  are  employed  clearly  referring  to  the  town,  and 
then  another  as  clearly  referring  to  the  country.  Good,  or 
at  least  plausible,  arguments  have  been  advanced  by  respect- 
able authorities  on  both  sides  of  the  question,  and  that  fact 
suggests  that  the  wisest  course  may  be  to  be  on  both  sides. 
The  phrase,  the  outlets  of  the  ways,  has  a  suggestive  vagueness 
about  it  which  stimulates  the  imagination,  and  craves  room 
and  scope  and  largeness  of  interpretation,  so  that  it  may 
embrace  at  once  the  outcasts  of  Israel  and  the  Pagans.  The 
king's  dining-hall  was  ample,  and  the  servants  were  to  bring 
as  many  as  they  could  find,  and  there  are  plenty  of  servants 
about  a  king's  palace  to  search  for  guests  in  all  directions, 
in  town  or  country.  This,  accordingly,  the  servants  seem  to 
have  done ;  for  it  is  written  that  they  went  out  into  the  ways 
(ubovs),  the  peculiar  expression  in  their  directions  not  being 
repeated  in  the  record  of  the  execution.2 

1  Matt.  xxi.  43. 

*  Farrar  ('  Life  of  Christ*)  finds  in  this  a  delicate  "  reference  to  the  im- 
perfect work  of  human  agents,"  the  words  within  inverted  commas  being 
quoted  from  'Lightfoot  on  Revision,'  p.  68.  We  would  rather  find  in  the 
change  of  expression  a  tacit  admission  that  the  phrase  first  used,  while 
suitable  enough  in  the  mouth  of  the  king  giving  general  instructions, 
was  too  vague  to  be  used  with  propriety  in  describing  what  was  actually 
done. 


ch.  v.]   The  Wedding-Feast  &  the  Wedding-Robe.   475 

II.    The  judgment  of  grace  abused. 

The  tenth  verse  appropriately  introduces  the  new  tableau 
of  the  guest  without  a  wedding-robe.  That  a  fresh  start  in 
the  narration,  with  a  distinct  didactic  aim,  is  being  made 
is  apparent  from  the  simple  fact  that  the  messengers  who  go 
out  to  collect  guests  from  the  highways  are  spoken  of  as 
those  servants  (ol  bovXot  Zne'ivoi).  If  the  verse  had  been  merely 
the  conclusion  of  the  preceding  narrative,  the  servants  would 
have  been  the  appropriate  expression.1  But  that  the  story  is 
about  to  take  a  new  turn  is  chiefly  indicated  by  the  significant 
expression  employed  to  characterise  the  guests  gathered 
together  by  this  mission.  Those  servants,  we  read,  going 
forth,  collected  together  all  whom  they  found,  both  bad  and 
good.  We  must  not,  with  Bengel,  minimise  the  force  of  the 
phrase,  as  if  it  were  a  proverbial  expression  signifying  '  in- 
discriminately.' It  is  intended  to  emphasise  the  fact  that 
the  invitation  was  indiscriminate  with  special  reference  to  the 
moral  character  or  reputation  of  the  parties,  and  that  with 
an  obvious  regard  to  the  scene  which  follows  in  the  wedding- 
chamber.  The  terms  applied  to  the  guests  are  all  the  more 
significant  when  compared  with  those  employed  in  the  corre- 
sponding parable  in  Luke.  There  what  is  accentuated  is  the 
abject  poverty  of  the  guests.  It  is  the  children  of  misery 
and  want  that  are  invited  ;  the  desperately  needy,  the  very 
beggars  on  the  highway,  when  it  is  found  that  there  is  still 
room.  Here,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  reference  to 
poverty  ;  a  fact  overlooked  by  many  commentators,  with  the 
result  that  unnecessary  difficulty  is  introduced  into  the  part 
of  the  parable  relating  to  the  wedding-robe.  How  unreason- 
able, it  is  argued,  to  visit  with  severe  penalties  the  want  of  such 
a  robe  on  the  part  of  a  poor  man,  who  was  not  in  possession 
of  one  or  able  to  purchase  one;  and  to  get  over  the  difficulty 
it  is  deemed  necessary  to  assume  that  the  guests  must  have 
been  furnished  with  wedding-attire  out  of  the  royal  ward- 
robes. We  shall  come  to  that  question  by  and  by ;  mean- 
time, let  it  be  noted  that  there  is  not  a  word  about  poverty 
in  the  text.  The  guests  are  not  a  crowd  of  paupers  and 
beggars;  they  are  a  congregation  of  men  and  women  got 
together  without  reference  to  their  moral  antecedents.     In 

1  So  GoebeL 


476       The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  hi. 

the  esteem  of  society  some  of  them  might  be  good,  and  some 
bad  ;  but  of  such  distinctions  the  servants  took  no  account. 
They  invited  all  they  met  without  question  or  hesitation  as 
to  character  or  antecedents ;  although  it  might  be  evident 
at  a  glance  from  dress,  features,  and  bearing,  that  some  were 
suspicious  enough.  Doubtless,  among  the  invited  would  be 
some  poor, — probably  the  majority  were  of  that  class ;  but 
of  that  fact  no  note  is  taken.  What  is  remarked  on  is  that 
the  guests  were  a  motley  crew  as  to  character ;  some  respect- 
able, others  disreputable :  ragged  not  in  their  outward  attire, 
but  in  their  name  and  fame,  like  the  Corinthian  Church  of 
after  days,  of  which  Paul  remarked :  "  Such  were  some  of 
you":1  drunkards,  adulterers,  thieves,  and  the  like. 

When  we  realise  distinctly  the  import  of  the  phrase  "  bad 
and  good,"  we  are  prepared  for  some  such  offence  as  is 
reported  in  the  sequel.  In  such  a  crowd,  swept  together 
from  street  and  highway,  rudeness,  irreverence,  insensibility 
to  the  claims  of  the  royal  presence  and  the  solemn  occasion 
might  be  looked  for.  These  guests  have  not  been  accustomed 
to  appear  in  such  a  place,  and  it  will  be  strange  indeed  if 
they  comport  themselves,  without  exception,  as  becomes  a 
palace  and  a  royal  marriage.  We  should  rather  expect 
irreverence  to  be  the  rule,  and  decorum  the  exception.  Yet 
in  the  parable  only  one  of  the  guests  appears  guilty  of  rude- 
ness. Why  is  this  ?  Because  if  the  parable  at  this  point 
had  followed  natural  probability,  there  would  have  been  a 
risk  of  guests  being  few,  a  great  difficulty  in  getting  the  feast- 
chamber  filled.  The  chamber  was  filled  with  guests  because 
^he  messengers  invited  all  regardless  of  antecedents ;  but  it 
might  have  been  emptied  again,  if  the  scrutiny  had  complied 
with  the  requirements  of  probability.  Many  were  called,  but 
few  might  have  been  allowed  to  remain.  To  avoid  this 
result,  and  to  keep  the  chamber  full,  the  number  of  offenders 
is  reduced  to  one.2  One  was  enough  to  suggest  the  fact,  and 
illustrate  the  principle  of  scrutiny.  In  consequence  of  this 
restriction,  the  representation  of  the  parable,  as   has  been 

1  1  Cor.  vi.  1 1. 

1  One  or  two  interpreters  have  founa  the  explanation  in  the  supposition 
that  Christ  had  Judas  Iscariot  in  view.  Even  Olshausen  speaks  oi  this 
prosaic  hypothesis  as  possible. 


CH.  v.]   The  Wedding-Feast  &  the  Wedding- Robe.  477 

remarked,  is  not  in  keeping  with  the  concluding  apoph- 
thegm : 1  "  Many  are  called,  but  few  are  chosen  " — all  being 
chosen  but  one.  The  incongruity  cannot  be  helped,  for  the 
feast  must  go  on  with  a  number  of  guests  answering  to  the 
importance  of  the  occasion.  Therefore  one  guest  is  selected 
to  represent  a  class. 

When  we  consider  how  far  short  the  parabolic  statement 
at  this  point  comes  of  natural  likelihood,  we  see  that  it  cannot 
have  been  the  intention  of  Christ  to  represent  the  king  as 
entering  the  chamber  with  the  express  purpose  of  scrutinising 
the  guests.  He  enters  not  to  scrutinise  but  to  welcome ;  any 
other  supposition  would  give  to  his  appearance  among  his 
guests  an  ungracious  aspect,  altogether  out  of  keeping  with 
the  occasion.  The  discovery  of  a  man  without  a  wedding- 
robe  is  an  accident,  an  unpleasant  incident  not  looked  for 
beforehand,  though  a  thing  which  cannot  be  overlooked  once 
it  has  been  observed.  Had  the  intention  been  to  make  the 
king  enter  for  the  purpose  of  a  scrutiny,  it  would  have  been 
necessary  either  greatly  to  multiply  the  numbers,  to  give  the 
scrutiny  an  aspect  at  once  of  reality  and  of  probability,  or 
to  make  the  concluding  aphorism  run,  Many  are  called,  but 
not  all  are  chosen. 

But  now,  what  is  the  offence  of  which  the  solitary  repre- 
sentative of  the  disapproved  is  guilty  ?  We  can  have  no 
difficulty  in  answering  the  question  if  we  bear  in  mind  the 
composition  of  the  multitude  collected  in  the  marriage- 
chamber.  Answers  very  wide  of  the  mark  have  been  returned 
by  commentators  approaching  the  subject  from  the  dogmatic, 
instead  of  the  natural  and  historical,  point  of  view.  The  sin 
of  the  offending  guest,  we  are  told  variously,  is  self-righteous- 
ness,2 disloyalty,3  intrusion  into  a  feast  to  which  he  has  not 
been  invited.4  All  these  views  are  connected  with  a  theory 
as  to  the  wedding-garment  being  the  gift  of  the  king.  The 
guest  was  self-righteous,  because  he  preferred  his  own 
garment  to  that  offered  him  from  the  royal  wardrobe ;  he 
was  disloyal,  because  he  refused  the  garment  which  etiquette 
required  all  guests  to  receive  and  wear,  in  mere  rudeness 
and  wantonness ;  he  was  an  intruder,  because  had  he  been 

1  D'Eichthal,  *Les  Evangiles.*  ■  Arndt,  Alford. 

9  Arnot.  *  Baumgarten-Crusius. 


478       The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  hi. 

invited  he  would  doubtless  have  been  offered  a  wedding-robe, 
and  of  course  would  have  put  it  on.  These  suggestions  are 
all  out  of  keeping  with  the  circumstances.  Self-righteousness 
is  not  the  sin  which  besets  people  such  as  those  guests  swept 
indiscriminately  from  street  and  road.  As  little  is  disloyalty 
to  be  imputed  without  urgent  reason  to  men  who  have  so  far 
shown  loyalty  by  coming  to  the  feast  in  response  to  the 
invitation.  And  as  for  the  idea  that  the  offending  guest  was 
an  uninvited  intruder,  it  is  simply  absurd.  Merely  to  hear 
of  the  feast,  even  at  second-hand,  was  to  be  invited,  for  the 
commission  to  the  servants  was  to  bring  as  many  as  they 
could  find.  "  Let  him  that  heareth  say  come,  and  whosoever 
will,  let  him  take  of  the  water  of  life  freely." 

Of  what  kind  of  fault  were  those  guests  likely  to  be  guilty  ? 
Surely  of  unmannerliness,  coming  without  decoration,  not  from 
want  of  loyal  feeling,  or  from  conceit,  or  because  they  had 
no  suitable  apparel,  but  from  pure  want  of  thought  and 
refined  feeling.  The  moral  fault  answering  to  this  is  an 
unethical  license,  taking  advantage  of  God's  goodness,  without 
taking  pains  to  cultivate  the  virtue  that  becomes  those  who 
are  admitted  into  close  relations  with  the  Divine  Being.  This 
is  one  of  two  forms  under  which  men  may  sin  against  grace. 
It  is  the  form  under  which  those  can  so  sin  who  accept  God's 
invitations ;  the  other  being  that  under  which  those  offend 
who  decline  the  invitations.  Paul  speaks  of  both  offences 
in  his  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  The  one,  that  of  the  refusers 
of  God's  invitations,  he  calls  despising  God's  grace,  which  he 
charges  upon  the  self-righteous  Jews ;  *  the  other  he  calls 
sinning  because  grace  abounds?  which  is  the  sin  of  what  we 
might  describe  as  unregenerate  faith. 

That  Jesus  should  take  occasion  to  enter  a  protest  against 
this  sin,  the  licentious  abuse  of  grace,  as  well  as  against  the 
other  offence,  proud  contempt  of  grace,  cannot  appear  sur- 
prising. For  though  He  ever  gave  great  prominence  to  the 
gracious  character  of  the  kingdom,  He  was  always  zealous 
likewise  for  its  righteousness.  He  set  forth  the  kingdom  as 
a  kingdom  of  grace  to  begin  with,  because  He  wished  it  to  be 
a  kingdom  of  righteousness  to  end  with.  He  deemed  the 
proclamation  of  free  grace  the  best  way  to  produce  holiness. 
»  Rom.  ii.  4.  *  Rom.  vi.  I. 


ch.  v.]  The  Wedding-Feast  &  the  Wedding- Robe.  479 

If  He  offered  the  grace  of  God  to  the  chief  of  sinners,  it  was 
because  He  believed  that  such  might  become  the  chief  of 
saints ;  on  the  principle  that  much  forgiveness  breeds  much 
love.  The  lesson  of  the  wedding-robe  is  thus  in  keeping 
with  the  general  spirit  of  His  teaching.  And  let  it  be 
observed  that  this  is  not  the  only  parable  in  which  a  zealous 
regard  to  the  interests  of  holiness  is  manifested.  The  same 
zeal  comes  out,  not  so  obtrusively  perhaps,  but  not  less  unmis- 
takably, in  the  parables  of  the  Fig-tree  and  the  Vine-dressers. 
The  barren  tree  is  removed  because  it  unprofitably  occupies 
the  ground,  which  implies  that  any  tree  which  is  planted 
in  its  place  is  put  there  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  forth 
fruit.  Then  in  the  sentences  appended  to  the  Vine-dressers, 
it  is  stated  that  the  kingdom  of  God  is  to  be  taken  from  the 
Jews  and  given  to  a  nation  producing  the  fruits  thereof. 

The  broad  lesson  then  of  the  sub-parable  of  the  Wedding- 
robe  is  that  the  recipients  of  Divine  grace  must  live  worthily 
of  their  privilege.  The  wedding-robe  represents  Christian 
holiness,  and  the  demand  is  that  all  believers  in  the  gospel 
#hall  sedulously  cultivate  it.  This  being  so,  it  is  useless  to 
discuss,  as  a  matter  of  life  and  death,  the  question  whether, 
according  to  ancient  custom,  the  wedding-robe  was  a  gift  of 
the  king.  The  point  is  of  no  consequence  to  the  didactic 
significance  of  the  parable,  but  merely  a  curious  question  ot 
Biblical  archaeology.  So  far  as  we  can  judge  from  the 
extracts  cited  by  commentators  from  works  relating  to 
Oriental  customs,  we  should  say  that  a  probable  case  has 
been  made  out  in  favour  of  the  alleged  custom.  But  that 
is  not  enough  to  justify  us  in  making  that  custom  the  hinge 
of  the  interpretation.  Had  the  didactic  significance  of  the 
wedding-robe  turned  on  its  being  a  gift,  the  fact  that  it  was 
presented  to  each  guest  to  be  worn  on  the  occasion  would 
have  been  mentioned.1  It  will  not  do  to  say  that  the  custom 
was  so  familiar  to  Christ's  audience  that  the  point  might  be 
taken  for  granted.  Facts  are  not  specified  or  omitted  in 
parables  according  to  the  ignorance  or  the  knowledge  of 
hearers,  but  according  as  they  do  or  do  not  bear  on  the 
purpose  of  the  story.  Thus  the  parable  of  Dives  passes  over 
the  piety  of  Lazarus,  not  because  it  might  be  assumed  as 

»  So  Meyer  and  Neander  ('  Life  of  Christ^  Bleek,  &c. 


480         The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  hi. 

known  but  because  the  mention  of  it  would  have  been  an 
irrelevance.  Similarly  here :  suppose  it  were  not  a  matter 
of  inference  merely,  but  a  certainty  that  the  wedding-garment 
was  a  robe  similar  to  the  kaftan  presented  now  in  the  East 
by  kings  to  persons  appearing  before  them,  the  absence  of 
all  allusion  to  the  custom  must  be  held  to  be  conclusive 
evidence  that  it  is  irrelevant  to  the  lesson  intended  to  be 
taught.  The  silence  means  that  the  Speaker  wishes  to 
accentuate  the  duty  of  each  guest  seeing  to  it  that  he 
appeared  at  the  feast  in  proper  attire.  In  short,  as  has  been 
remarked,  prominence  is  given  to  the  ethical  view-point  which 
emphasises  man's  responsibility,  rather  than  the  religious 
which  represents  all  as  depending  on  God.1  To  prove  ever 
so  cogently  that  the  wedding-garment  came  from  the  king's 
stores  does  not  invalidate  this  statement,  but  only  confirms  it.* 
The  conclusion  to  which  these  observations  point  is,  that 
there  is  no  foundation  in  the  parable  for  the  good  old 
Protestant  interpretation,  according  to  which  the  wedding- 
garment  is  the  righteousness  of  God  given  to  faith.  Vestis 
est  justitia  Christi,  says  the  devout  and  scholarly  Bengel,  and 
we  should  gladly  agree  with  him  ;  but  we  feel  that  the  idea 
of  an  objective  righteousness  given  to  faith  lies  outside  the 
scope  of  this  parable,  and,  indeed,  except  in  the  most  general 
form,  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  whole  system  of  truth  contained 
in  the  records  of  our  Lord's  teaching.8  That  idea  is  distinct- 
ively Pauline.  It  is  the  form  under  which  he  presents  to 
view  the  summum  bonum,  or  the  gift  of  grace.    The  equivalent 

*  De  Wette. 

•  While  a  circumstance  of  such  didactic  importance  as  that  the 
wedding-garment  was  a  loan  from  the  king  could  not  properly  be 
omitted,  it  is  otherwise  with  the  circumstance  that  the  guests  gathered 
from  the  highways  were  allowed  an  opportunity  to  make  a  change  of 
raiment  somehow.  That  might  be  taken  for  granted  as  a  matter  of  course. 
Storr,  while  pointing  this  out,  yet  concurs  in  the  opinion  that  it  is  not 
necessary  to  determine  whence  the  wedding-garment  was  to  be  procured  ; 
the  intention  being  to  teach  merely  the  general  lesson  that  the  soul  must 
be  clothed  anew  with  righteousness,  not  the  method  of  procuring  the 
necessary  vesture  (' De  Parabolis  Christi,'  translated  in  the  'Biblical 
Cabinet,'  vol.  ix. ). 

»  The  nearest  approach  to  it  in  the  Synoptical  Gospels  is  in  the  expres- 
sions, "The  kingdom  of  God,  and  His  righteousness"  (Matt.  vi.  33); 
and  u  Justified  rather  than  the  other  "  (Luke  xviii.  14). 


ch.  v.]    The  Wedding- Feast  &  the  Wedding-Robe.  481 

in  Christ's  teaching  is  the  kingdom  of  God.  These  two  ideas 
are  not  opposed  to  each  other ;  on  the  contrary,  they  are 
intimately  related,  and  in  full  sympathy  with  each  other. 
Still  their  relation  is  one  of  co-ordination,  not  of  sub-ordin- 
ation. The  righteousness  of  God  is  not,  as  is  implied  in 
Bengel's  interpretation  of  the  wedding-garment,  a  detail  under 
the  general  head  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  It  is  another 
name  for  the  same  thing.  The  doctrine  of  Christ  and  that  of 
Paul  are  essentially  one.  In  both,  man's  relation  to  God  is 
represented  as  based  upon  grace.  That  view  is  implied  in 
this  parable ;  but  it  is  important  to  note  at  what  point  it 
comes  in.  The  grace  of  the  kingdom  is  set  forth  by  the 
selection  of  a  wedding-feast  to  be  its  emblem.  The  wedding- 
robe  represents  the  holiness  of  the  kingdom  which  ought  to 
accompany  and  flow  from  the  reception  of  grace.  Its  equiva- 
lent in  the  Pauline  system  is  not  the  righteousness  of  iaith, 
which  answers  to  the  feast  in  the  parable,  but  those  parts  of 
the  Apostle's  teaching  in  which  he  insists  on  holiness  as  the 
outcome  of  faith  in  God's  grace,  and  so  guards  his  doctrine 
against  objections  springing  out  of  concern  for  ethical 
interests.  The  passages  in  Paul's  writings  which  come  near- 
est in  import  to  the  sub-parable  of  the  Wedding-garment  are 
those  in  his  Epistle  to  the  Romans  where  he  protests  against 
the  impious  idea  that  we  may  sin  because  grace  abounds,1 
and  warns  the  Gentile  believers  to  beware  lest  through 
spiritual  shortcomings  the  same  fate  befall  them — the  wild 
olive  branches,  which  had  overtaken  the  natural  branches,  the 
elect  people  of  Israel.2 

We  pass  now  to  the  sequel  of  the  scene.  The  king  saith 
to  the  offending  guest :  "  Friend,  how  earnest  thou  hither  not 
having  a  wedding-garment  ? "  The  guilty  one  made  no 
reply;  in  the  expressive  language  of  the  parable  he  was 
muzzled.     His  speechlessness  was  the  product  of  confusion 

1  Rom.  vi.  1. 

*  Rom.  xi.  16—22.  We  may  here,  at  the  conclusion  of  the  discussion 
as  to  the  wedding-garment,  note  that  in  the  'Clementine  Homilies,'  viii. 
22,  the  garment  is  supposed  to  be  Baptism  :  kvSvpa  yu'^ow,  8tt«p  IotI> 
Pairrtana.  (In  the  same  place  the  SuKoSot  rS>v  iidv  are  identified  with 
the  Gentile  world,  UsXtvatv  t/n'iv,  ei'c  tciq'  SitZoSovc  rHv  o$wv  t\9ovviv,  0  i<TTi> 
irpit  vfiac)  The  Fathers  generally  made  the  wedding-robe  holiness. 
Thus  Origen  calls  it  to  vtyaapa  rqc  aptrtiC 

II 


482  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,  [book  m, 

in  the  august  presence  of  the  king.  Till  that  moment  the 
habit  of  irreverence  had  prevailed ;  for  he  had  not  realised 
had  never  even  thought,  what  it  was  to  be  confronted  with 
royalty.  But  when  the  king  actually  appears,  fixes  his  eye 
on  him  and  speaks  to  him,  he  is  confounded  and  struck 
dumb.  Thus  may  the  manner  of  the  man  be  most  naturally 
explained.  It  is  unnecessary  to  ascribe  to  him  any  deliber- 
ate intention  to  insult  by  any  act  of  rudeness  or  disloyalty. 
His  offence  was  one  of  thoughtlessness,  as  was  likely  to  be 
the  case  in  a  man  of  his  class.  The  severity  of  his  punish- 
ment naturally  tempts  us  to  make  his  fault  appear  as 
aggravated  as  possible  by  laying  stress  on  every  word  that 
can  be  supposed  to  imply  deliberate  purpose,1  and  by 
imagining  circumstances  fitted  to  deprive  him  of  all  excuse, 
such  as  that  the  missing  article  of  apparel  was  simply  an 
inexpensive  badge  or  symbol  which  the  poorest  could  have 
procured  for  himself.2  But  instead  of  thus  striving  to  magnify 
the  offender's  criminality,  it  is  better  to  direct  attention  to  the 
solemn  truth  that  even  sins  of  thoughtlessness  are  no  light 
matters  in  those  who  bear  the  Christian  name,  and  profess 
to  believe  in  God's  grace.  In  this  connection  it  is  important 
to  remember  that  it  is  this  class  of  sins  the  writer  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  seems  to  have  in  view  when  he 
exhorts  his  readers  to  follow  peace  with  all  men,  and  holiness 
as  an  indispensable  condition  of  seeing  God.  For  he  goes 
on  immediately  to  refer  to  Esau  as  the  type  of  those  who 
through  neglect  of  holiness  fall  short  of  the  grace  of  God. 
The  sin  of  Esau  was  heedlessness.  He  was  dying  of  hunger, 
and  what  was  a  birthright  to  a  starving  man  ?  When  appetite 
was  satisfied  he  regretted  his  rash,  thoughtless  act,  for  he  had 
not  deliberately  despised  his  birthright.  The  writer  of  the 
Epistle  would  have  his  brethren  understand  that  through 
nothing  worse  than  such  moral  rudeness  might  Christians 
miss  salvation.  And  that  is  the  lesson  taught  in  our  parable. 
We  see  here  a   man  who   falls   from   the  king's   grace   not 

>  Thus  Trench  points  out  that  the  particle  of  negation  in  the  king's 
question  is  not  ov,  as  in  the  previous  verse,  but  p$.  /»»)  i%wv  ivtvpa  ydpov 
not  having  (and  knowing  that  thou  hadst  not)  a  wedding-garment. 

2  So  Arnot,  who  refers  in  illustration  to  the  bride's  favour  given  tc 
guests  at  marriages  in  this  country. 


£H.  v.]   The  Wedding-Feast  &  the  Wedding-Robe.  483 

through  self-righteous  pride,  or  bold  disloyalty,  or  deliberate 
disrespect,  but  by  the  rude  behaviour  of  one  who  has  never 
been  accustomed  to  restraint,  and  who  without  thought  carries 
his  unmannerly  ways  into  the  royal  presence. 

The  doom  of  one  guilty  of  such  an  offence,  as  described  in 
the  parable,  appears  unduly  severe.  Enough  for  such  an  one, 
we  are  inclined  to  think,  that  he  be  unceremoniously  turned 
out  of  a  company  in  which  he  is  not  fit  to  appear.  Was  it 
worth  while,  one  is  apt  to  ask,  for  the  king  to  get  angry  over 
the  unmannerliness  of  this  clown  who  had  strayed  into  the 
marriage-hall,  or  to  issue  such  peremptory  instructions  as  to 
how  his  ministers  should  deal  with  him  ?  Was  not  such 
wrath  and  such  preciseness  undignified  in  a  royal  person  ? 
Certainly,  on  first  thought,  it  does  seem  so.  At  the  very 
least  the  king's  action  seems  to  stand  in  need  of  apology,  and 
the  apology  that  comes  readiest  is  that  the  king's  temper  has 
been  so  ruffled  by  the  contempt  of  the  first  invited  that  he  is 
naturally  very  jealous  of  any  fresh  manifestations  of  irreverence, 
and  prone  to  resentment  when  such  appear.  And  such  an 
explanation  of  the  king's  behaviour  is  quite  legitimate,  for 
we  are  not  bound  to  vindicate  the  actions  of  characters  in 
parables  from  all  charges  of  infirmity.  In  studying  the 
parable  of  the  Great  Feast  in  Luke's  Gospel  we  saw  that 
the  motive  of  the  host  for  filling  his  dining-hall  with  beggars 
from  the  highways  was  by  no  means  an  elevated  one.  Even 
so  here  we  may  imagine  the  king  to  be  simply  giving  way 
to  one  of  those  sudden  ebullitions  of  anger  in  which  eastern 
rulers  so  frequently  indulge,  under  whose  influence  they  issue 
the  most  ruthless  orders  on  comparatively  slight  provocation. 
In  this  way  we  should  at  all  events  justify  the  parabolic 
representation  as  in  accord  with  natural  probability.  But 
the  royal  wrath  and  the  order  in  which  it  issues  have  more 
than  picturesque  significance.  They  convey  the  thought 
that  a  heedless  life  on  the  part  of  a  believer  in  Divine  grace 
may  be  attended  with  fatal  consequences  ;  the  same  thought 
which  Paul  sought  to  impress  on  the  Corinthians,  and  the 
writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  on  Jewish  Christians, 
by  reminding  them  of  the  melancholy  fate  which  overtook 
the  people  of  Israel  in  the  wilderness,  notwithstanding  that 
they  had  participated  in  the  grace  of  Jehovah  in  connection 

I  I  a 


j84        The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book.  hi. 

■with  the  Exodus.1  The  passages  in  which  these  solemn 
warnings  are  given  are  the  best  possible  commentary  on 
the  command  of  the  king.  They  refer  to  historical  facts 
which  prove  that  what  seem  very  pardonable  sins  of  unbelief, 
murmuring,  and  hankering  after  forbidden  enjoyments,  may 
be  mercilessly  punished,  leaving  no  room  for  repentance, 
even  though  it  be  sought  carefully  and  with  tears.  Christ, 
ever  faithful,  and  truly  desirous  of  the  salvation  of  all  His 
followers,  draws  His  picture  in  accordance  with  the  facts 
of  experience,  at  the  risk  of  seeming  to  make  God  appear 
a  harsh  tyrant,  and  Himself  less  pitiful  than  we  love  to  think 
Him.  For  if,  as  we  have  no  reason  to  doubt,  the  concluding 
reflections  of  the  parable  were  spoken  by  Him,  then  He 
must  be  understood  as  acquiescing  in  the  rigour  of  Provi- 
dence. "There  shall  be  the  weeping  and  the  gnashing  of 
teeth,"  says  He,  in  reference  to  the  ejected  guest ;  suggesting 
the  picture  of  a  poor  wight  lying  in  darkness  bound  and 
helpless,  lamenting  his  exclusion  from  joy,  and  the  folly 
which  occasioned  it.  "Many  are  called,  but  few  chosen," 
He  adds,  to  suggest  that  the  sad  fate  of  the  one  may 
befall  many,  the  number  of  the  heedless  being  at  all  times 
great. 

>  I  Cor.  x. ;  Heb.  iii 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  UNFAITHFUL  UPPER  SERVANT  % 
OR,   THE  JUDGMENT  OF  DEGENERATE   MINISTERS   OF   THE   KINGDOM. 

In  the  two  parables  which  remain  to  be  considered  ere  we 
bring  these  studies  to  a  close,  judgment  appears  active  within 
the  kingdom  of  grace.  In  the  second  scene  of  the  last 
parable  we  already  see  the  judicial  activity  of  Christ  begin- 
ning to  manifest  itself  in  this  sphere.  But  the  sub-parable  of 
the  Wedding-robe  is  only  a  prelude  to  the  judgment  of  the 
house  of  God.  There  is  judged  a  class  who  never  realised 
the  responsibilities  of  those  who  receive  God's  gracious  favour, 
who  entered  the  kingdom  in  the  rudeness  of  nature,  untouched 
by  any  regenerative  influence.  But  in  the  parables  now  to 
be  studied  we  witness  the  judgment  not  of  the  unregenerate, 
but  of  the  degenerate,  who  made  a  fair  start,  but  have  under- 
gone a  demoralising  process,  and  declined  from  their  initial 
spiritual  condition  as  believers.  They  begin  by  recognising 
the  claims  of  holiness,  but  they  do  not  persevere  in  this 
mind. 

In  every  process  of  declension  or  degeneracy  time  enters  as 
an  element.  The  phenomena  resulting  can  appear  only  after 
the  movement  with  which  they  are  associated  has  lasted  for  a 
while.  Perseverance  in  holiness  in  the  individual  and  in  the 
community  is  tested  by  the  occurrence  of  a  period  of  trial. 
The  parable  first  considered,  that  of  the  Sower,  taught  us 
this.  Jesus  speaks  there  of  those  who  receive  the  word  with 
joy,  but  when    tribulation  cometh  are   offended.     It  is  not 


486        The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  hi. 

surprising,  therefore,  that  the  parables  before  us  are  found 
connected  in  the  record  with  an  eschatological  discourse,  in 
which  the  consummation  of  the  kingdom,  while  represented 
as  an  event  to  be  looked  for  at  any  moment,  is  at  the  same 
time  spoken  of  as  an  event  likely  to  be  deferred  so  long 
as  to  involve  a  great  trial  of  faith  and  patience.  The  virtue 
specially  called  for  by  such  a  situation  is  watchfulness.  Were 
the  near  advent  of  the  consummation  certain,  watching  would 
not  be  needed ;  being  possible,  yet  not  certain,  that  habit  is 
at  once  necessary  and  difficult.  For  deiay  brings  temptation 
to  relax  zeal,  and  yielding  to  the  temptation  exposes  to  the 
risk  of  surprise.  The  discourse  on  the  last  things,  accordingly, 
contains  frequent  exhortations  to  watchfulness.  "Watch, 
therefore,  for  ye  know  not  the  day  nor  the  hour,"  comes  in 
at  intervals  like  a  solemn  refrain.  And  the  lesson  is  enforced 
not  merely  by  repetition  of  the  counsel,  but  by  the  use  of 
figurative  representations  exhibiting  vividly  the  need  of 
watching,  and  the  danger  of  neglecting  it.  We  find  a  whole 
group  of  parabolic  sayings  embedded  in  the  eschatological 
discourse,  all  having  for  their  moral :  "  Watch,  for  you  may  be 
thrown  off  your  guard  by  delay,  and  be  surprised  by  the 
sudden  (for  sudden  it  will  be)  coming  of  the  long  expected." 
In  Matthew's  version  of  the  sermon  there  are  three  :  the 
Good-man  and  the  Thief,  the  Unfaithful  Upper  Servant,  and 
the  Ten  Virgins.  The  second  of  the  three  is  given  by  Luke 
in  a  different  connection,  prefaced  by  another  parable,  that  of 
the  Waiting  Servants  who  expect  their  absent  lord  with  loins 
girt  and  lights  burning,  which  was  probably  spoken  at  the 
same  time  as  the  others.1  Mark  gives  a  fifth,  that  of  the 
Porter ;  its  peculiarity  being  that  the  duty  of  watching,  which 
in  the  other  parables  is  enjoined  on  all  the  servants,  is  assigned 
in  the  distribution  of  offices  to  a  particular  functionary.2  It 
is  possible,  however,  that  this  is  not  a  distinct  parable,  but 
an  amalgam  of  the  Waiting  Servants  and  the  Talents,  the 
watching  porter  representing  the  lesson  taught  in  the  former, 
and  the  assignment  of  tasks  to  the  servants  individually 
representing  the  distribution  of  talents  in  the  latter.3     Omit- 

1  Luke  xii.  35—37.  ■  Mark  xiii.  34. 

•  So  Weiss,  '  Das  Markus-Evangelium/ 


ch.  vi.]       The   Unfaithful  Upper  Servant.  487 

ting  it,  there  remain  four  parabolic  utterances  bearing  on  the 
same  theme,  and  all,  there  is  little  doubt,  spoken  at  the  same 
time;  a  sufficient  index  of  the  prominent  place  which  the 
subject  of  watching  occupied  in  Christ's  thoughts  in  His 
last  days,  in  its  bearing  on  the  spiritual  welfare  of  His 
disciples. 

Of  these  four  parables  only  two,  those  of  the  Unfaithful 
Upper  Servant,  and  the  Ten  Virgins,  call  for  detailed  study. 
The  two  others  merely  inculcate  in  a  general  manner  the 
duty  of  watching ;  these  show  the  evil  tendency  of  delay  to 
demoralise  character  in  different  ways,  and  the  doom  of  such 
as  yield  to  the  baleful  influence.  The  Waiting  Servants  and 
the  Good-man  and  the  Thief  maybe  regarded  as  introductory 
to  the  parable  which  is  first  to  engage  our  attention,  as  indeed 
they  appear  in  Luke's  narrative.  In  the  former  the  coming 
of  the  Son  of  man  is  compared  to  the  return  of  an  house- 
holder from  a  marriage-feast  to  his  own  home  at  an  unseason- 
able hour  of  the  night,  when,  in  the  ordinary  course,  all  the 
inmates  would  be  asleep.  But  on  such  an  occasion,  when 
their  master  is  expected,  dutiful  servants  will  not  retire  to 
rest,  but  will  patiently  wait  for  His  arrival,  at  whatever  hour 
it  may  take  place,  with  garments  tucked  up  in  readiness  for 
service,  and  with  the  lights  burning  brightly  in  the  chambers. 
Such  an  attitude  Jesus  desired  His  disciples  habitually  to 
maintain.  "  Let  your  loins  be  girt  about,"  He  said,  "  and 
your  lamps  burning,  and  be  ye  yourselves  like  unto  men  who 
wait  for  their  lord."  He  indicated  how  difficult  He  deemed 
it  to  carry  into  effect  the  counsel  by  appending  to  the  parable 
the  reflection  :  "  Blessed  are  those  servants  whom  their  lord, 
when  he  cometh,  shall  find  watching ;  verily  I  say  unto  you, 
that  he  shall  gird  himself,  and  make  them  sit  down  to  meat, 
and  shall  come  and  serve  them."  When  our  Lord  used  this 
epithet  '  blessed,'  He  always  meant  to  represent  the  thing 
spoken  of  as  high  and  rare.  '  Rare  virtue,'  He  here  exclaims 
in  effect,  in  reference  to  the  conduct  of  the  waiting  servants. 
So  rare  does  He  reckon  it,  that  He  represents  the  master  as 
not  expecting  it  ;  counting  rather  on  finding  the  house  dark 
and  his  servants  in  bed,  with  hardly  one  left  to  open  the  door 
when  he  knocks.     Finding  the  facts  otherwise,  observing  the 


488         The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  hi. 

cheery  appearance  of  lights  in  the  windows,  sure  indication 
that  the  household  is  on  the  outlook,  he  is  so  delighted  that, 
instead  of  accepting  service  from  his  dutiful  slaves,  he  is 
rather  in  the  mood  to  turn  servant  to  them,  and  supply  them 
with  refreshment,  and  so  reward  rare  virtue  with  equally  rare 
felicity  and  honour. 

The  scene  next  changes  from  servants  watting  for  their 
absent  lord  to  a  householder  whose  house  is  in  danger  of 
being  broken  into  by  thieves.  In  thjs  instance  we  are  told, 
not  what  the  man  does  or  ought  to  do,  but  what  he  would  do 
in  a  supposed  case.  If  he  knew  when  the  thief  would  come 
he  would  watch  to  protect  himself  against  the  risk  of  having 
his  property  carried  off.  If  only  he,  like  the  waiting  servants, 
knew  the  day,  it  would  not  matter  what  the  hour  was,  he 
would  gladly  keep  awake  through  all  the  watches  of  the 
night  to  avoid  the  threatened  danger.  But  he  does  not  know 
the  day  any  more  than  the  hour;  for  while  it  is  for  the 
interest  of  an  absent  master  that  his  servants  should  know  at 
least  the  day  of  his  return,  it  is  the  thiefs  interest,  on  the 
contrary,  that  his  victim  should  be  ignorant  as  to  the  day,  as 
well  as  the  hour,  of  his  attack.  Therefore  the  good-man 
of  the  house  cannot  help  himself ;  he  must  go  to  bed  and 
take  his  risk ;  for  it  is  physically  impossible  to  do  without 
sleep,  and  watch  night  and  day  all  his  life  long.  He  acts 
so  from  necessity,  not  because  he  is  indifferent ;  not  even 
trusting  to  his  poverty  as  a  sufficient  protection.  A  poor 
man  he  is,  for  he  lives  in  a  mud  house,  which  can  be  dug 
through,1  so  that  a  barred  door  is  no  sufficient  defence.  But 
even  poverty  does  not  lull  him  into  security ;  for  the  little  he 
has  is  valuable  to  him,  and  it  would  be  valuable  also  to  a 
thief,  probably  poorer  than  himself,  and  tempted  by  want  to 
steal.  The  moral  is :  Let  disciples  do  always  what  the  good 
man  of  the  house  would  do  if  he  could,  or  does  on  occasion. 
They  have  need ;  for  the  end  is  apt  to  come  thief-like,  tarry- 
ing long,  as  if  it  would  never  arrive,  then  overtaking  men 
by  surprise.  They  can  ;  for  though  they  know  neither  the 
day  nor  the  hour,  watching  in  the  moral  sense  is  possible  at 

1  The  term  employed  to  denote  the  mode  by  which  the  thief  gets  in  is 

diopvyqvai. 


ch.  vi .3       The  Unfaithful  Upper  Servant.  489 

all  times ;  there  is  no  necessity  in  the  spiritual  sphere  fo* 
being  at  the  mercy  of  the  thief. 

Such  urgent  exhortations  to  watchfulness,  spoken  doubtless 
with  great  earnestness  of  tone,  must  have  fallen  with  startling 
effect  on  the  ears  of  hearers.  We  can  readily  believe,  there- 
fore, that  Peter,  speaking  for  the  twelve,  asked  such  a  question 
as  is  put  into  his  mouth  by  the  third  Evangelist.  The 
question  is  vaguely  expressed, — "  Speakest  Thou  this  para- 
ble ? "  he  said,  though  two  had  been  uttered, — and  without 
any  indication  of  motive.  Peter  doubtless  had  in  view  the 
whole  discourse  about  watching,  and  his  question  probably 
arose  out  of  a  feeling  of  surprise  at  the  severe  tone  pervading 
it.  His  thought  fully  expressed  was  probably  something  like 
this  :  "Master,  you  seem  to  consider  watchfulness  very  difficult, 
as  well  as  very  needful.  Whom  have  you  specially  in  view 
when  you  speak  thus  ?  Do  you  think  that  we,  your  chosen 
companions,  need  to  be  particularly  exhorted  after  this  fashion, 
or  are  you  not  speaking  to  us  at  all,  but  merely  addressing 
general  exhortations  to  the  crowd  ? "  Probably  Peter's  feeling 
was  that  he  and  his  brethren  did  not  need  to  be  spoken  to  so, 
but  were  superior  to  the  vulgar  vice  of  heedlessness.  In  that 
case  there  was  indicated  in  his  question  the  same  spirit  of 
self-confidence  which  revealed  itself  on  the  night  before  the 
Passion  in  connection  with  the  declaration  of  Jesus,  "  All  ye 
shall  be  offended  in  Me  this  night."  If,  as  is  probable,  the 
putting  of  the  question  formed  an  incident  in  the  deJivery  of 
the  eschatological  discourse  during  Passion  Week,  we  have 
two  characteristic  manifestations  of  Peter's  infirmity  occurring 
within  a  few  days  of  each  other,  in  one  of  which  he  asks,  with 
a  tone  of  injured  virtue,  "  Speakest  Thou  thus  to  us  ?  "  and  in 
the  other  declares,  "  Though  all  shall  be  offended  in  Thee,  I 
will  never  be  offended."  In  the  light  of  this  juxtaposition  we 
can  better  understand  the  stern  tone  of  Christ's  reply,  which 
must  have  sounded  almost  as  harsh  to  Peter's  ear  as  the  word 
which  foretold  his  fall — "  Verily  I  say  unto  thee,  that  this 
night  thou  shalt  deny  Me  thrice."  Taking  the  two  together, 
the  announcement  of  the  impending  fall  and  the  parable  of 
the  Unfaithful  Upper  Servant,  they  convey  this  lesson :  The 
demoralising  effect  on  character  of  a  sudden  crisis  overtaking 


490        The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  hi. 

an  inexperienced  disciple  is  bad  enough,  but  that  produced 
by  long  delay  is  still  worse.  The  one  leads  to  humiliating 
denials  of  the  Lord,  the  other  may  lead  to  shameless  pro- 
fligacy: habitual  denial  in  life,  more  culpable  far  than  the 
momentary  denials  of  the  tongue. 

The  parable  which  teaches  this  lesson  is  as  follows : 

Who  then  is  the  faithful  and  wise  servant  whom  his  lord  set  over  his 
household  to  give  them  their  food  in  due  season  ?  Blessed  is  that 
servant  whom  his  lord  when  he  cometh  shall  find  so  doing.  Verily 
I  say  to  you,  that  he  will  place  him  over  all  his  goods.  But  if  that 
evil  servant  shall  say  in  his  heart,  My  lord  tarrieth,  and  shall  begin 
to  beat  his  fellow-servants,  and  shall  eat  and  drink  with  the  drunken; 
the  lord  of  that  servant  shall  come  in  a  day  when  he  expectelh  not, 
and  in  an  hour  when  he  knoweth  not,  and  shall  cut  him  asunder,  and 
appoint  his  portion  with  the  hypocrites:  there  shall  be  t)u  weeping  and 
the  gnashing  of  teeth. — Matt.  xxiv.  45 — 51.1 

The  reply  of  Jesus  to  Peter's  question  is  indirect  but  clear. 
Without  saying  in  express  terms,  "  I  mean  you  as  well  a*> 
others,  nay,  you  very  specially,"  by  selecting  an  upper  servant 
as  the  subject  of  the  parable  He  shows  that  the  duty  of 
watching  is  one  to  which  men  called  to  be  apostles  are 
specially  summoned,  and  the  neglect  of  which  in  their  case 
involves  peculiar  dangers.  In  its  main  drift  the  parable  is 
the  judgment  of  ministers  of  the  kingdom  demoralised  even 
to  profligacy  by  the  delay  of  the  second  advent.  From  the 
parable  thus  viewed  two  inferences  may  be  confidently  drawn : 
that  Christ  must  have  expected  His  kingdom  to  pass  through 
a  lengthened  history  before  reaching  its  consummation  ;  and 
that  He  regarded  perseverance  in  grace  through  a  protracted 
period  as  exceedingly  difficult  for  the  individual  and  for  the 
community.  Only  in  the  light  of  these  inferences  can  the 
salient  features  of  the  representation  be  understood  and 
appreciated. 

1  The  version  of  the  parable  in  Luke  is  nearly  the  same  as  in  Matthew. 
For  rpo0j)i»,  ver.  45,  Luke  has  ffirofiirptov.  Instead  of  "  to  eat  and  drink 
with  the  drunken,''  Luke  reads,  "  to  eat  and  to  drink  and  to  be  drunken.' 
For  itiroKptrwv  Luke  has  airiarwv.  Luke  adds  a  reflection  on  the  difference 
as  to  the  amount  of  penalty  between  those  who  know  their  lord's  will  and 
those  who  know  it  not. 


ch.  vi."]       The  Unfaithful  Upper  Servant.  491 

First  we  notice  the  black  picture  of  the  upper  servant's 
misconduct  during  his  lord's  absence.     He  becomes  a  brutal 
tyrant  and  a  drunken  profligate,  a  man  utterly  unworthy  of 
his  trust,  and  absolutely  indifferent  to  his  master's  interests, 
whatever  he  may  pretend  ;  whose  proper  place  in  character, 
as  in  penalty,  is  among  the  faithless x  and  the  hypocritical.1 
Consider  what  this  means  in  the  spiritual  sphere.   A  profligate 
clergy  lording  it  over  God's  heritage,  dissolute  in  life,  sceptical 
in  reference  to  the  future  glory  of  the  kingdom  and  all  great 
Christian  verities,3  and  guilty  of  grossest  hypocrisy  in  com- 
bining the  exercise  of  sacred  functions  with  a  total  lack  of 
personal  faith  and  holiness.     It  takes  a  long  time  to  develop 
such  a  deplorable  state  of  matters.     Not  at  the  beginning  of 
a  religious   movement,  not   in    its   creative   epoch,  do   such 
scandalous  phenomena  make  their  appearance  ;  but  when  the 
spiritual  force  has  to  a  large  extent  spent  itself,  and  its  effects 
have  taken  their  place  among  the  institutions  of  the  world, 
as  at  the  conversion  of  the  Roman  empire  under  Constantine, 
and  the  'establishment'  of  Christianity  as  the  religion  of  the 
State.     When  He  drew  the  dark  picture  Christ  must  have 
been  looking  far  beyond  the  apostolic  age;  for  any  one  of 
ordinary  sagacity,  not  to  speak  of  prophetic  prescience,  might 
understand  that  the  degeneracy  depicted  could  not  appear 
then  in  a   form   intense  and    extensive  enough   to  make   it 
worth  while  to  construct  a  parable  concerning  it.     The  delay 
of  the  master's  coming  must  have  meant  for  Him  a  lengthened 
period,  during  which   the   kingdom  was  to  pass   through  a 
secular  process  of  development,  in  the  course  of  which  hideous 
forms  of  evil,  as  well  as  new  forms  of  good,  would   manifest 
themselves.      It   is   true   that   in   the  parable  only  a  single 
instance  of  degeneracy  is  mentioned,  which  might  occur  even 
in  the  best  of  times,  even  in  the  earliest  or  apostolic  age. 
It  is  true  also  that  the  case  is  put  hypothetically.     If  the 
servant  act  thus  and  thus  he  will  be  treated  accordingly.     But 
parabolic  speech  suggests  more  than  it  says,  and  it  is  due 
to  its  dignity  and  gravity  to  assume  that  a  more  serious  state 

*  tuv  airioTwv,  Luke  xii.  46. 

*  twv  i)7roK-pirwv,  Matt.  xxiv.  51. 

*  airwroc  may  mean  either  faithless  or  unbelieving. 


a 


492         The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,  [book  hi. 

of  things  than  a  solitary,  exceptional  instance  of  depravity- 
would  amount  to  is  signified,  even  a  widespread  declension  ; 
and  further,  that  such  declension  is  not  only  possible,  but 
probable  or  even  certain. 

If  this  be  so,  then  the  second  inference  above  stated  is 
abundantly  justified,  viz.  that  Jesus  must  have  had  a  profound 
sense  of  the  difficulty  of  persevering  in  grace  through  3 
protracted  period.  But  this  more  plainly  appears  from  the 
manner  in  which  fidelity  is  spoken  of  in  the  opening  sentences 
of  the  parable.  Who,  it  is  asked,  is  the  faithful  and  wise 
servant  who,  being  appointed  to  a  place  of  trust  and  responsi- 
bility in  his  master's  house,  shall  act  as  is  expected  of  him? 
as  i;  such  a  person  were  hardly  to  be  found.  Who  is  he? 
where  is  he  ?  what  would  one  not  give  to  see  him  ?  That 
such  a  one  is  pronounced  blessed  signifies  the  same  thing ; 
for,  as  already  stated,  this  word  as  used  by  Christ  always 
denotes  something  high,  exceptional,  rare.  Applied  to 
conduct,  it  signifies  virtue  arduous,  heroic,  and  therefore 
uncommon.  Applied  to  state,  it  signifies  felicity  out  of  the 
common  course.  "Blessed  is  that  servant"  means  he  is  a 
rare  man,  a  hero,  one  among  a  thousand.  It  means  further, 
great  shall  be  his  reward,  and  of  this  accordingly  the  parable 
goes  on  next  to  speak.  "Verily  I  say  unto  you,  that  he 
shall  make  him  ruler  over  all  his  goods."  Having  proved 
himself  trusty,  he  shall  be  rewarded  with  unlimited  trust,  and 
promoted  to  a  position  next  to  his  lord,  which  can  be  occupied 
by  one  only,  the  first  man  in  the  house,  the  prime  minister 
in  the  state. 

It  may  appear  strange  that  our  Lord  took  so  sombre  and 
discouraging  a  view  of  the  capabilities  of  the  average  disciple 
to  persevere  in  faith  and  fidelity  amidst  the  temptations 
arising  out  of  the  mere  lapse  of  time,  not  to  speak  of  other 
more  positive  forms  of  trial.  But  it  is  not  necessary  to 
suppose  that  He  meant  to  represent  time  in  itself  as  a  source 
of  trial.  Time  is  a  mere  abstraction,  and  the  lapse  of  time 
tries  men  simply  by  affording  scope  for  the  play  of  influences 
within  or  without  hostile  to  their  spiritual  interest.  The  real 
thought  underlying  the  parabolic  representation  is :  the  diffi- 
culty of  persistence  in  spiritual  life  throughout  a  curriculum 


ch.  vi.]        T/ie  Unfaithful  Upper  Servant.  493 

of  trial  such  as  the  lapse  of  years  and  ages  inevitably  brings, 
one  of  the  sorest  temptations  involved  being  the  disappoint- 
ment of  early  hopes  for  the  speedy  consummation  of  devout 
desires.  Even  when  thus  put  the  doctrine  is  hard  enough, 
and  were  it  to  be  found  only  in  this  parable,  we  might  well 
doubt  the  correctness  of  our  interpretation.  But  it  pervades 
our  Lord's  teaching,  and  we  do  not  need  to  go  beyond  the 
discourses  of  the  Passion  Week  to  meet  with  words  of  kindred 
import  to  that  now  under  consideration.  In  the  very  same 
discourse  of  which  our  parable  forms  a  part  we  read, "  Because 
iniquity  shall  abound,  the  love  of  many  shall  wax  cold.  But 
he  that  shall  endure  unto  the  end,  the  same  shall  be  saved,"  > 
a  statement  implying  that  endurance  is  hard,  and  therefore 
rare,  at  least  in  times  when  wickedness  is  rampant.  Then 
on  the  Passion  eve  Jesus  said  to  the  eleven,  "  Ye  are  they 
which  have  continued  with  Me  in  My  temptations,"  so  grate- 
fully acknowledging  a  fidelity  which  had  been  far  from  easy ; 
and  to  indicate  still  further  His  sense  of  the  heroic  character 
of  their  behaviour,  He  added,  "And  I  appoint  unto  you  a 
kingdom."  *  Ye  have  done  nobly,  and  noble  shall  be  your 
reward— such  is  the  import  of  the  pathetic  utterance.  It  is 
in  full  sympathy  with  the  didactic  drift  of  our  parable,  though 
it  implies  a  more  genial  appreciation  of  the  behaviour  of 
Peter  and  his  fellow-disciples  than  that  which  seems  to  be 
insinuated  in  the  latter. 

The  punishment  awaiting  the  wicked  servant  is  dreadful. 
His  lord,  coming  on  a  day  when  he  expects  him  not,  and 
at  an  unknown  hour,  will  cut  him  asunder.  Whatever  the 
word  iixoroni'icrei  may  signify  in  the  spiritual  sphere,  it  is  to 
be  interpreted  literally  when  we  seek  to  determine  the  exact 
character  of  the  parabolic  representation.  It  means  in  plain 
terms  to  cut  the  body  into  two,  as  by  a  saw  or  other  instru- 
ment, a  barbaric  and  revolting  mode  of  putting  to  death 
practised  among  the  Hebrews  and  other  nations  of  antiquity.' 
One  is  inclined  to  wonder  that  Christ  did  not  shrink  from 
using  a  word  suggestive  of  such  horrible  associations.     But 

1  Matt.  xxiv.  12.  *  Luke  xxii.  28,  29. 

»  Vide  1  Sam.  xv.  33 ;  a  Sam.  xiL  31 ;  Heb.  xL  37.  For  classical 
references  vide  Wetstein. 


49+  The  Parabolic    Teaching  of  Christ,  [book  hi, 

doubtless  He  did  shrink,  and  forced  Himself  nevertheless  to 
employ  the  term,  with  an  eye  to  moral  effect.  The  strong 
word  served  several  good  purposes.  It  conveyed,  in  the  first 
place,  as  has  been  happily  pointed  out  by  Bengel,  the  idea 
of  a  punishment  congruous  to  the  character  of  the  criminal 
on  whom  it  is  inflicted,  that,  viz.,  of  a  hypocrite.  "  A  hypocrite 
divides  soul  and  body  in  the  worship  of  God ;  wherefore  his 
soul  and  his  body  are  divided  in  eternal  destruction."  Then, 
secondly,  the  Dantesque  expression  adequately  indicates  the 
intense  abhorrence  with  which  Jesus  regarded  conduct  on  the 
part  of  professed  followers  by  which  the  house  of  God  was 
turned  into  a  house  of  Belial.  Finally,  it  was  well  fitted  to 
scare  and  terrify  the  twelve  disciples  to  whom  the  parable 
was  first  spoken,  and  so  effectually  prevent  them  from  being 
guilty  of  misconduct  pronounced  worthy  of  such  punishment. 
In  this  connection  it  is  important  to  point  out  that  Christ's 
strongest,  harshest  words  occur  in  speeches  addressed  to  His 
disciples.  It  is  in  the  discourse  on  Humility  that  we  find  the 
millstone  suspended  by  the  neck ;  it  is  in  the  parable  of  the 
Unmerciful  Servant  that  mention  is  made  of  the  tormentors  ; 
It  is  in  the  parable  of  the  Wicked  Upper  Servant  that  the 
horrible  punishment  of  cutting  in  two  is  alluded  to:  the 
audience  in  all  three  instances  being  the  twelve.  The 
purpose  is  plain:  strong  language  is  used  to  render  hated 
sin  impossible. 

With  the  punishment  of  the  unfaithful  one,  the  parable  as 
given  in  Matthew  ends.  Luke  appends  a  reflection  intended 
to  meet  a  feeling  naturally  arising  out  of  the  parabolic 
-epresentation.  Declension  into  faithlessness  is  difficult  to 
esist,  and  its  penalty  is  rigorous:  such  is  the  drift  of  the 
whole.  "Who  then  can  be  saved?"  is  the  question  which 
suggests  itself  to  every  sincere  disciple.  Such  despair  is 
dangerous ;  for  nothing  is  more  demoralising  than  to  be  told 
at  once  that  virtue  is  next  to  impossible,  and  that  the  want 
of  it  will  be  inexorably  punished.  Jesus  hastened  to  obviate 
the  evil  effect  by  making  a  distinction  between  those  who  sin 
with  full  knowledge  of  their  Lord's  will,  and  those  who  sin 
in  comparative  ignorance  thereof.  A  milder  word  also  is 
employed  to  denote  the  penalty  in  either  case.     Stripes  take 


ch.  vi.]       The   Unfaithful  Upper  Servant.  495 

the  place  .of  cutting  asunder.  The  stronger  word  denotes 
the  inherent  turpitude  of  the  offence,  the  weaker  is  used  out 
of  compassionate  regard  to  the  infirmity  of  human  nature, 
which  often  causes  men  not  wicked  in  will  to  fall  grievously 
before  the  assaults  of  temptation,  whereof  the  denial  of  his 
beloved  Master  by  Peter  is  an  instructive  example. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  TEN  VIRGINSj 
OH,   THE   JUDGMENT   OF   FOOLISH   CITIZENS  OF  THE  KINGDOM 

Then  shall  the  kingdom  of  heaven  be  likened  unto  ten  virgins,  who  took 
their  lamps ^  and  went  forth  to  meet  the  bridegroom.  And  five  of 
them  were  foolish,  and  five  were  wise}  For  the  foolish,  when  they 
took  their  lamps,  took  no  oil  with  themselves.  But  the  wise  took  oil 
in  their  vessels  with  their  own  lamps.  Now  while  the  bridegroom 
tarried,  they  all  nodded  3  and  slept.  But  at  midnight  is  raised  a  cry, 
Behold  the  bridegroom;  come  ye  forth  to  meet  him}  Then  arose  all 
those  virgins,  and  trimmed  their  lamps.  And  the  foolish  said  unto 
the  wise,  Give  us  of  your  oil,  for  our  lamps  are  going  out.  But  the 
wise  answered,  saying,  Lest  there  be  not  enough  for  us  and  you,  go 
rather  to  them  that  sell,  and  buy  for  yourselves.6  And  while  they 
were  going  away  to  buy,  the  bridegroom  came ;  and  the  virgins  that 

1  \afiiradoQ,  properly  torches.  Probably  the  *  lamps'  consisted  of  a 
short  wooden  stem  held  in  the  hand,  with  a  dish  at  the  top  in  which  was 
a  piece  of  cloth  dipped  in  oil  or  pitch.  Lightfoot  ('  Hor.  Heb.')  gives 
from  the  Talmud  an  account  of  torches  used  at  marriages  among  the 
Ishmaelites  answering  to  this  description.  They  carry  before  the  bride 
"decern  baculos  ligneos,  in  uniuscujusque  summitate  vasculum  instar 
«.  utellae  habentes,  in  quo  est  segmentum  panni  cum  oleo  et  pice."  The 
number  ten  is  noticeable. 

2  Such  is  the  order  in  the  chief  uncials,  and  adopted  by  Tischendorf, 
Westcott  and  Hort,  and  the  R.  V. 

8  Maralav.  The  nodding  was  transient,  the  initial  stage,  hence  the 
aorist ;  the  sleeping  was  continuous,  hence  UdOtvSov,  the  imperfect. 
Nodded  is  a  familiar  word,  but  it  has  the  merit  of  stating  exactly  what 
happened,  and  conveys  the  idea  that  as  the  night  advanced  the  virgins 
were  overtaken  with  drowsiness. 

4  tk  &irdvrt}<nv :  literally,  "unto  meeting:"  a  familiar  and  important 
ceremony. 

6  fiijTrort  oiic,  which  Goebel  renders  'never,'  making  the  refusal  unneces- 
sarily peremptory.  The  rendering  above  given  is  Campbell's,  after  the 
Vulgate. 


CH.  vil]  The  Ten   Virgins.  497 

were  ready l  went  in  with  hit*  to  the  marriage-feast t  and  the  door  was 
shut.  Afterwards  came  also  the  other  virgins,  saying,  Lord,  Lord, 
open  to  us.  But  he  answered  and  said,  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  1 
know  you  not.  Watch,  therefore,  for  ye  know  not  the  day  nor  the 
hour. — Matt.  x:tv.  i — 13. 

THE  last  of  the  parables  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  and 
touching.  The  arts  have  been  made  to  minister  to  its  illus- 
tration :  poetry,  painting,  and  the  drama  have  combined  to 
give  it  an  exceptional  hold  on  the  Christian  imagination. 
The  weird  pathos  of  the  story  is  unspeakable.  The  occasion 
is  so  happy,  the  agents  so  interesting,  the  issue  so  tragic.  It 
is  a  wedding  that  is  on  hand  ;  the  characters  brought  on  the 
stage  are  virgins,  young,  bright,  and  fair  ;  the  fate  of  some  of 
them  is  so  hard — exclusion  from  the  marriage  festivities  at 
which  they  so  longed  to  be  present,  and  for  so  slight  a  cause 
— a  little  too  late.  One's  heart  is  sore  for  those  five  witless, 
luckless  girls. 

A  parable  like  this  one  would  rather  silently  read  than 
expound;  for  exposition  is  almost  certain  to  mean  turning 
poetry  into  prose.  For  another  reason  one  shrinks  from  the 
interpreter's  task  in  the  present  instance.  No  parable  has 
been  so  completely  taken  possession  of  by  allegorising 
theology.  The  natural  story  has  been  buried  beneath  a  heap 
of  spiritual  meanings  which  have  been  accumulating  from  the 
patristic  period  till  now.  To  every  word— virgin,  bridegroom, 
lamp,  oil— has  been  assigned  its  emblematic  significance.  A 
comparatively  sober  Catholic  commentator  counts  fifteen 
parts  which  have  their  spiritual  equivalents,  not  reckoning 
among  these  the  part  in  which  the  foolish  virgins  are  repre- 
sented as  going  to  buy,  which  he  regards  as  a  mere  ornament.2 
To  go  against  the  exegetical  tradition  of  well-nigh  two 
thousand  years  is  not  only  audacious,  but  almost  profane. 
And  yet  there  is  no  parable  in  which  preliminary  discussion 
of  the  story  apart  from  the  moral  interpretation  seems  more 
urgently  needed.  Convinced  of  this,  we  must  decline  to 
ask  such  questions  as  what  does  the  oil  signify,  until  we  have 
formed  a  clear  idea  of  what  persons  whose  oil-supply  had  run 
out  would  be  likely  to  do  at  an  ordinary  wedding.    The  result 

1  u\  Irotfioi  tm  the  ready  ones,  viz.  the  wise  virgins.  *  Maldonatus. 

K  K 


498  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  hi. 

of  our  inquiry  may  be  to  place  us  in  the  undesirable  position 
of  an  almost  solitary  dissenter.  Yet  what  can  one  do  but 
state  honestly  the  opinions  which,  after  much  reflection,  com- 
mend themselves  to  his  mind  ? 

The  situation,  or  course  of  events,  is  by  no  means  clear. 
The  movement  of  the  narrative  is  rapid,  many  details  are 
omitted,  only  the  salient  points  necessary  to  the  moral  lesson 
being  given  ;  and,  as  has  been  remarked,  the  information 
supplied  by  travellers  and  writers  on  antiquities  concerning 
Jewish  customs  do  not  afford  much  help  towards  filling  up  the 
picture.1  Such  information  carries  us  little  beyond  the 
generality  of  a  torchlight  procession,  which  was  not  peculiar 
to  Judaea,  but  formed  a  feature  in  the  marriage  customs  also 
of  Greece  and  Rome.2  We  read  of  ten  virgin-companions  of 
the  bride,  whose  function  it  was  3  to  go  forth  with  lamps  to 
meet  the  bridegroom.  But  from  what  point  did  the  torch- 
light night  journey  start  ?  and  how  are  we  to  conceive  its  pro- 
gress ?  To  these  queries  no  less  than  four  distinct  answers 
are  given  by  the  commentators.  They  may  be  briefly  stated 
thus : — 

1.  The  virgins  set  out  from  their  own  homes  with  lamps  in 
hand,  arrive  one  after  the  other  at  the  bride's  home,  there 
wait  for  the  announcement  of  the  bridegroom's  approach, 
whereupon  they  prepare  to  accompany  him,  with  his  bride,  to 
his  house,  where  the  nuptial  festivities  are  celebrated.4 

2.  The  virgins  meet  at  the  bride's  home,  their  rendezvous. 
How  or  when  they  get  there  is  a  matter  of  indifference  to  the 
parable.  There  they  wait  till  the  approach  of  the  bridegroom 
is  announced;  then,  for  t/te  first  time,  they  proceed  to  light 
their  lamps,  that  with  these  they  may  go  forth  to  meet  the 
bridegroom  and  conduct  him  to  the  bride's  house,  where,  and 
not  in  his  own  house,  the  marriage  takes  place.5 

3.  The  virgins,  assembled  at  the  bride's  house,  set  out  with 

1  So  Fritsche  and  Bengel. 

*  Vide  Wetstein  for  references  to  classic  usage. 

8  amvtQ,  ver.  1,  implies  that'  the  clause  following  describes  the  kind  of 
rirgins  meant.     They  are  bridesmaids. 

*  Bornemann  in  'Studien  und  Kritiken,   1843,  Ewaldj  GreswcU. 

*  GoebeL 


ch.  vii.J  The  Ten   Virgins.  499 

their  lights  to  meet  the  bridegroom  without  waiting  for  the 
announcement  of  his  approach,  expecting  him  to  come  at  a 
certain  time.  When  they  have  gone  a  certain  length  on  the 
way  it  becomes  apparent  to  them  that  he  is  not  coming  so 
soon  as  was  expected,  and,  weary  with  the  journey,  they  turn 
aside  to  some  halting- place — an  inn,  a  private  dwelling,  or  the 
roadside — to  rest,  and  are  soon  overpowered  with  sleep,  from 
which  they  are  aroused  by  the  cry,  The  bridegroom  is  at 
hand;  whereupon  they  join  his  party  and  return  with  them  to 
the  bride's  house.1 

4.  The  virgins  join  the  procession  of  the  bridegroom  and 
the  bride  coming  from  the  house  of  the  latter  and  going  to 
the  house  of  the  former ;  meeting  the  bridal  party  at  some 
convenient  point  on  the  road  at  which  they  have  gathered.2 

The  difference  which  chiefly  concerns  us  in  these  four 
hypotheses  is  that  between  the  second  and  all  the  rest.  That 
view  implies  that  the  foolish  virgins  had  no  oil  at  all,  while  all 
the  others  imply  that  they  took  with  them  from  their  homes 
oil  enough  to  last  for  the  time  which  they  expected  to  elapse 
before  the  arrival  of  the  bridegroom.  On  the  one  view  their 
folly  consisted  in  never  thinking  of  oil,  and  merely  taking  the 
empty  lamps ;  on  the  other  it  consisted  in  taking  only  aa 
much  as  was  usually  sufficient,  and  making  no  provision  fot 
the  possible  case  of  the  delayed  arrival  of  the  bridegroom. 
The  author  of  the  second  hypothesis  insists,  in  support  of  it, 
on  the  reflexive  pronoun  lavrQtv  after  kainrabas  in  ver.  1,  and 
before  Zkaiov  in  ver.  3.  The  foolish  virgins  took  their  own 
lamps,  but  they  took  not  their  own  oil ;  for  that,  or  for  the 
light  that  oil  gives,  they  trusted  to  others  ;  it  would  be  enough 
to  be  in  the  company  of  those  who  had  light-giving  lamps. 
The  expression,  "  Our  lamps  are  going  out,"  in  ver.  8,  he 
thinks  does  not  mean  the  oil  in  our  lamps  is  exhausted,  but 
simply  implies  that  wicks  had  been  kindled  in  oilless  lamps, 
which  of  course  were  no  sooner  lighted  than  they  began  to  go 
out.  Against  the  more  common  view  he  argues  that  it  makes 
the  wise  far  too  wise,  for  how  should  they  be  able  to  guess 
that  the  arrival  of  the  bridegroom  might  possibly  be  delayed 
a  considerable  time  ?     Moreover,  he  contends  that  in  any  case 

*  Bleek,  Meyer,  Stc  *  Trench  Arnot,  Lange. 

XX  a 


500        The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    ([book  hi. 

there  was  no  need  for  an  extra  supply  of  oil.  The  lamps 
were  not  needed  till  the  arrival  of  the  bridegroom  was 
announced,  and  the  procession  of  virgins  to  meet  him  went 
only  a  short  distance,  and  lasted  only  a  short  time.  The  idea 
of  the  virgins  setting  out  in  a  haphazard  way,  without  any 
announcement,  to  meet  the  bridegroom,  is  altogether  unlikely, 
and  the  halt  on  the  road  for  rest  absurd,  and  contrary  to  all 
notions  of  propriety. 

The  argument  is  ingenious,  and  in  some  points,  especially 
the  last  referred  to,  cogent ;  but  the  hypothesis  in  question  has 
its  assailable  points  also.     If  some  of  the  other  views  make 
the  wise  too  wise,  it  in  turn  makes  the  foolish  too  foolish.     It 
is  surely  possible  to  be  as  foolish  as  the  moral  of  the  parable 
requires  without  being  so  foolish  as  to  take  lamps  without 
ever  thinking  of  oil !     In  fact,  the  folly  of  the  foolish  virgins 
on  this  view  has  no  relation  to  the  moral  lesson.     Suppose 
the   bridegroom   had   not   tarried,  the  foolish  virgins  would 
have  been  equally  at  fault.     But  the  point  of  the  parable  is 
to  illustrate  the  effect  of  delay,  or  of  the  unexpected,  in  test- 
ing forethought,  which  is  the  chief  part  of  wisdom.     Besides, 
on    this  view  it   is  difficult   to   see  why  the   foolish  virgins 
trimmed,  that  is  to  say,  lighted,  their  lamps.     They  knew 
they  had  brought  no  oil,  they  knew  why  they  had  neglected 
to  do  so,  viz.  because  they  reckoned  it  enough  that  their  com- 
panions should  have  lamps  that  gave  light.     Why  did  they 
not  continue  to   be  of  this  mind,  and  join   the  procession 
with  lamps  unlit  ?     Were  they  so  foolish  as  not  to  know  that 
a  wick  without  oil  to  feed  the  flame  would  not  continue  to 
burn  ?     One   other  objection   may  justly  be   taken   to  the 
hypothesis  in  question.     It   seems  intended  to  obviate  the 
difficulty  in  the  spiritual  interpretation  arising  from  the  fact 
of  the  foolish  having  oil — faith,  hope,  love,  yet  after  all  failing 
to   attain   salvation.      The   hard    problem    is  solved   by  the 
simple  method    of  degrading  the   foolish  virgins   into  mere 
formalists.     They  have  their  own  lamps,1  and  probably  are 

1  Greswell,  adopting  the  reading  Iv  ro»c  iyyiiote  iavruv  ptri  rSiv  \afu 
rdSuv  in  ver.  4,  makes  a  point  of  the  fact  that  the  vessels  for  extra  supply 
of  oil  were  the  property  of  the  virgins,  while  the  lamps  are  not  said  to  be. 
M  Though  their  lamps  might  have  been  received  from  any  other  quarter, 


ch.  vii.]  The  Ten   Virgins,  501 

very  conscious  of  the  fact ;  but  they  have  not  that  without 
which  lamps  of  religious  profession  are  of  no  use,  viz.  the  oil 
of  grace. 

On  the  whole  it  appears  certain  that  the  general  tenor  of 
the  story  and  its  didactic  purport  demand  that  we  should 
suppose  that  all  the  virgins  alike  were  furnished  with  a  certain 
amount  of  oil,  such  as  would  have  sufficed  for  ordinary  cir- 
cumstances, and  that  the  distinction  of  the  wise  virgins  and 
the  proof  of  their  wisdom  consisted  in  their  taking  with  them 
an  extra  supply  in  vessels  used  for  that  purpose,  whether 
attached  to  the  torch  handle  or  carried  separately.  In  all 
other  particulars  we  are  willing  to  adopt  the  second  hypothesis 
and  to  conceive  of  the  circumstances  thus :  The  virgins  come 
from  their  own  homes  to  that  of  the  bride  with  lamps  burning, 
there  rest  waiting  for  the  announcement  of  the  bridegroom, 
their  lamps  still  burning  or  blown  out.  When  the  cry  is  raised, 
they  all  rise  and  trim  their  lamps,  the  wise  pouring  in  more 
oil,  the  foolish  lighting  theirs  as  they  were,  to  discover  soon 
that  the  oil  was  exhausted.  The  procession  goes  forth  to 
meet  the  bridegroom,  to  conduct  him  to  the  bride's  house, 
where  the  marriage  takes  place.  Usually  the  marriage-feast 
was  celebrated  in  the  house  of  the  bridegroom,1  but  the 
practice  does  not  appear  to  have  been  uniform,  exceptions 
occurring  in  the  sacred  history,  as  in  the  cases  of  Jacob  and 
Samson,2  and  reasons  readily  suggest  themselves  why  the 
parabolic  representation  should  follow  the  exceptions  rather 
than  the  rule. 

Having  settled  one  question  respecting  the  oil,  in  finding 
that  the  folly  of  the  foolish  virgins  consisted  not  in  bringing 
no  oil,  but  in  not  bringing  enough,  we  have  now  to  deal  with 
another  more  difficult  and  delicate,  viz.  was  the  oil  indispens- 

tbe  vessels  in  question  must  have  been  provided  for  themselves.  The 
original  provision  of  the  lamps,  with  their  ordinary  supply  of  oil,  convey- 
ing as  it  did  the  privilege  of  an  invited  guest,  or  being  an  evidence 
thereof,  might  be  due  to  a  cause  independent  of  themselves ;  but  the 
provision  of  vessels,  at  the  same  time,  was  a  precaution  which  emanated 
from  the  wise  virgins  themselves." 

1  This  fact  may  account  for  the  reading  of  D  in  ver.  I,  which  adds  to 
the  text  koX  rijc  viifitpnc  =  to  meet  the  bridegroom  and  the  bride. 

1  Gen.  xxix,  22 ;  Judges  xiv.  10. 


502         The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  ul 

able?  Would  the  foolish  virgins  have  been  excluded  from 
the  feast  supposing  they  had  joined  the  procession  and  arrived 
in  good  time,  simply  on  the  ground  that  they  carried  lamps 
which  gave  no  light?  This  question  the  commentators  do 
not  so  much  as  ask  themselves,  yet  with  one  consent  they 
virtually  answer  it  in  the  affirmative.  They  come  to  the 
parable  with  the  foregone  conclusion  that  the  oil,  like  the 
wedding  garment,  signifies  some  necessary  grace,  faith,  love, 
&c,  without  which  no  man  can  see  the  Lord,  and  of  course 
they  find  themselves  shut  up  to  the  conclusion  that  the  foolish 
virgins  were  placed  in  the  fatal  dilemma  of  being  obliged  on 
the  one  hand  to  procure  oil  somehow,  and  on  the  other  to 
make  themselves  too  late  for  the  feast  by  their  endeavour  to 
obtain  the  needed  article.  It  is  an  extreme  instance  of  exe- 
gesis dominated  by  homiletic  preoccupation.  The  bondage  is 
so  complete  that  it  may  appear  almost  an  impiety  to  claim  the 
liberty  to  hold  a  different  opinion.  And  yet  there  are  good 
reasons  for  doubting  the  soundness  of  the  exegetical  tradition 
at  this  point.  One  is  the  endless  diversity  of  opinion  as  to 
the  emblematic  significance  of  the  oil.  Every  interpreter  has 
his  own  conjecture.  The  oil  is  faith,  charity,  almsgiving, 
desire  for  the  praise  of  God  rather  than  the  praise  of  men ; 
good  works  in  general,  the  Holy  Spirit,  diligence  in  the  cul- 
ture of  grace,  religious  joy.  In  short,  it  is  anything  you 
please  ;  each  conjecture  is  purely  arbitrary,  one  is  as  legitimate 
as  another,  and  the  multiplicity  of  opinions  justifies  the  infer- 
ence that  they  are  all  alike  illegitimate.  Another  reason  for 
doubt  is  the  fact  that  in  the  parable  the  ground  of  exclusion 
is  not  want  of  oil,  but  lateness}  They  that  were  ready  went  in 
with  the  bridegroom  to  the  marriage-feast.  They  were  ready 
by  being  present,  while  the  others  were  away  in  quest  of  oil. 
Had  these  absent  ones  been  present  and  gone  on  with  their 
sisters,  they  would,  for  anything  that  appears  to  the  contrary, 
have  been  admitted  also.  But  the  chief  consideration  that 
weighs  with  us  is  that  drawn  from  the  natural  probabilities  of 
the  case.     Suppose  it  were  the  story  of  an  ordinary  wedding, 

1  Weiss,  'Das  Matthaus-Evangelium,'  says  that  the  want  of  oil  doe9 
not,  any  more  than  the  sleep,  cause  exclusion  from  the  feast.  It  mocks, 
he  adds,  every  allegorising  interpretation. 


ch.  vii.]  The  Ten   Virgins.  503 

not  intended  to  convey  any  spiritual  lesson.  A  number  o\ 
young  women  are  about  to  set  out  on  a  torchlight  procession 
in  the  evening  to  escort  the  bridegroom.  Some  of  them  have 
mislaid  their  torches,  and  cannot  find  them  in  the  hurry  when 
the  cry  is  raised  The  bridegroom  is  at  hand !  or,  as  in  the 
parable  before  us,  their  torches  are  rendered  useless  for  want 
of  oil.  What  are  they  to  do  ?  Run  the  risk  of  making  them- 
selves too  late  by  searching  for  their  torches  or  going  in  quest 
of  oil,  or  fall  into  the  procession  ?  Of  course  they  go  on  with 
their  companions,  and  of  course  they  are  admitted  to  the  feast 
with  the  rest.  For  though  the  carrying  of  a  lighted  torch  is  a 
part  of  the  festive  ceremonial,  and  belongs  to  the  conventional 
proprieties  of  the  occasion,  it  is  not  the  essential  element. 
The  essential  element  is  the  welcoming  of  the  bridegroom  ; 
the  carrying  of  lights  is  an  accident  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
procession  takes  place  by  night.  If  this  be  a  correct  repre- 
sentation of  what  would  happen  in  natural  life,  and  all  that 
we  learn  from  those  conversant  with  Eastern  customs  confirms 
it,1  then  it  was  simply  a  second  act  of  folly  on  the  part  of 
the  foolish  virgins  to  disqualify  themselves  for  showing  honour 
to  the  bridegroom,  and  to  make  themselves  late  for  the  feast 
by  going  away  to  buy  oil,  so  turning  an  accessory  into  an  essen- 
tial, and  imperilling  substantial  interests  by  scrupulous  regard 
to  ceremony.  Had  they  been  wise  they  would  have  gone  on 
as  they  were,  and  so  gained  an  admission  to  the  festive  hall. 

According  to  this  view  the  foolish  virgins  act  in  character 
from  first  to  last.  They  are  fools  all  through.  They  are 
foolish  first  in  taking  only  a  limited  supply  of  oil,  assuming 
that  the  usual  will  happen  ;  while  the  wise  with  characteristic 
forethought  make  provision  for  the  unusual,  that  is,  for  the 

1  The  passage  cited  from  Ward's  'View  of  the  Hindoos'  by  Trench, 
ana  after  him  by  Morrison,  is  quite  in  accordance  with  our  view.  Ward 
mentions  that,  at  a  certain  marriage  ceremony  which  he  witnessed,  the 
bridegroom,  coming  from  a  distance,  kept  the  party  waiting  for  him  several 
hours.  Then,  his  arrival  being  announced  in  words  similar  to  those  in 
the  parable,  all  lighted  their  lamps,  and  ran  to  join  the  procession.  Some, 
however,  lost  their  lamps.  What  then?  The  author  says — "It  was  too 
late  to  seek  them,  and  the  cavalcade  moved  forward/'  not  saying,  but 
implying,  that  those  who  had  bst  their  lamps  did  not  waste  time  in  seeking 
them,  but  went  on  without  them  (vide  vol.  iii.  p.  171). 


504         The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  hi. 

possible  case  of  unexpected  delay.      They  are  foolish  next 
in  going  away  at  an  unseasonable  hour  to  purchase  oil  instead 
of  taking  their  place  in  the  marriage  procession  as  they  were, 
a  little  put  to  shame  by  their  dark  lamps,  nevertheless  making 
sure  their  part  in  the  main  events  of  the  occasion,  the  welcom- 
ing of  the  bridegroom,  and  admission  to  the  wedding  feast. 
Such  consistency  of  character  commends  itself  as  intrinsically 
probable.     The  only  serious  objection  to  the  hypothesis  is  the 
fact  that  the  suggestion  to  go  and  buy  oil  comes  from  the 
wise  virgins.     How,  it  may  be  asked,  could  they  advise  their 
sisters  to  do  a  foolish  thing  ?     Does  not  the  very  fact  of  their 
giving  such  advice  imply  that  to  procure  a  supply  of  oil  was 
indispensable  to  admission  ?     Now  it  is  not  necessary  in  order 
to  meet  this  difficulty  to  adopt  the  suggestion  of  Augustine, 
that  the  advice  of  the  wise  was  only  an  exemplification  of  that 
mockery  of  wisdom  at  the  calamity  of  folly  spoken  of  in  the 
book  of  Proverbs.1      There  is  certainly  not   a  little  in  the 
circumstances  to  give  plausibility  to  this  view.     The  hour 
was  midnight,  and  the  bridegroom  was  at  hand,  what  likeli- 
hood of  being  able  to  get  oil  at  all  when  the  shops  of  those 
who  sold  were  shut,  and  their  owners  in  bed  ?     What  chance 
of  getting  it  at  least  in  time,  however  near  the  houses  of  the 
vendors  might  be  ?     To  say  in  such  circumstances,  Go  and 
buy,  was  very  like  heartlessly  advising  to  do  the  impossible. 
But  the  conduct  of  the  wise  can  be  explained  without  ascrib- 
ing to  them  cruelty.     Sudden  emergencies  bring  into  play  a 
certain  element  of  selfishness.     Then  it  is  every  one  for  him- 
self.    The  sharp  loud  cry  is  raised,  Behold,  the  bridegroom  is 
at  hand  !     Excitement  and  hurry  pervade  the  house,  each  one 
is  engrossed  with  her  own  business,  and  when  help  is  sought 
by  the  shiftless  from  the  shifty  it  is  declined  with  the  best 
answer  that  occurs  at  the  moment.     In  natural  life  one  might 
say  to  another,  "  Go  and  buy  for  yourself,"  without  expecting 
the  advice  to  be  taken  seriously,  yet  without  intending  to 
mock.      Objectively  the   advice  of  the  wise  virgins  to   the 
foolish  was  a  mockery  ;  subjectively  it  was  nothing  more  than 
a  declinature  to  be  burdened  with  their  neighbours'  affairs. 

1  Augustine's  words  are,  Non  consulentium,  sed  irridentiura,  est  ista 
resporsio  (Serm.  xciii.  8)  ;  similarly  in  Epist.  cxL  31. 


ch.  vii.  "J  The  Ten   Virgins,  505 

If  the  foregoing  view  be  correct,  the  oil,  hitherto  regarded 
as  a  symbol  of  grace,  under  one  aspect  or  another,  ought 
rather  to  be  reckoned  a  symbol  of  the  means  of  grace ;  and 
the  action  of  the  virgins  who  went  to  buy  oil  will  represent 
the  superstitious  importance  attached  to  such  means  by  a 
certain  class  of  religionists  to  the  peril  of  their  spiritual 
interests.  Taking  together  the  two  acts  of  lolly  committed 
by  the  foolish  virgins,  the  neglect  to  take  a  sufficient  supply 
of  oil,  and  the  unseasonable  attempt  to  provide  what  was 
lacking,  the  resulting  character  is  marked  by  two  salient 
features — lack  of  forethought  and  superstitious  regard  to  form, 
or,  to  express  it  otherwise,  vain  regard  to  appearance.  That 
is  to  say,  folly  reveals  itself  in  this  parable  under  the  same 
guise  as  in  another  parable,  in  which  a  contrast  is  drawn 
between  the  foolish  and  the  wise,  that,  viz.  with  which  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  concludes  ;  and  the  fact  confirms  us  in 
the  belief  that  the  view  we  venture  to  take  is  correct.  The 
foolish  builder  is  a  man  who  thinks  not  of  the  future,  and 
who  has  regard  only  to  appearances  ;  while  the  wise  builder 
keeps  in  view  the  uncertainties  and  dangers  of  the  future,  and 
is  not  content  with  mere  appearance.  The  characteristic 
differences  come  out  in  connection  with  the  cardinal  question 
of  the  foundation.  The  one  builder,  the  wise  one,  makes  the 
foundation  of  his  house  a  matter  of  serious  consideration  ;  the 
other  begins  to  build  without  ever  thinking  of  a  foundation, 
and  therein  shows  his  folly.  His  mistake  does  not  consist,  as 
is  often  imagined,  in  making  a  bad  choice  of  a  foundation  ; 
but  in  acting  as  if  a  foundation  were  a  matter  of  no  conse- 
quence, beginning  to  build  anywhere,  on  the  loose  sand,  on 
the  banks,  or  even  in  the  bed  of  a  river,  dried  up  by  summer 
heat.  This  appears  very  clearly  from  Luke's  report  of  our 
Lord's  words.1  He  that  heareth  and  doeth  is  there  compared 
to  a  man  who  "  built  a  house  and  digged  deep  and  laid 
a  foundation  2  upon  the  rock  ; "  and  he  that  heareth  and  doeth 
not  to  a  man  that,  "  without  a  foundation?  built  a  house  upon 

1  Luke  vi.  46 — 49. 

8  6iph\iov,  without  the  article,  implying  that  a  foundation  is  not,  aj 
usual,  a  matter  of  course. 
*  x**P?C  Oqukunh 


506  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  m 

the  earth."  That  is,  the  one  takes  great  pains  with  the 
foundation  of  his  house — digs  below  the  surface,  and  goes 
deep  in  digging — digs  till  he  reaches  the  rock ;  the  other 
takes  no  pains  about  a  foundation,  provides  none  indeed,  but 
begins  at  once  to  build  at  haphazard  on  the  surface  of  the 
ground.  It  is  thus  not  a  case  of  choosing  well  between  two 
possible  foundations,  one  good,  the  other  bad  ;  but  rather  a 
case  of  attending  to  or  neglecting  the  foundation.  And  the 
question  to  be  considered  by  the  expositor  or  preacher  is  not 
what  are  the  two  foundations  represented  respectively  by  the 
rock  and  the  sand,  but  what  are  the  qualities  of  oharacter 
implied  in  attending  to  or  neglecting  the  foundation  of  a 
house.  The  rock  and  the  sand  have  no  independent  signifi- 
cance, the  one  didactically  important  point  is  the  contrast  of 
character  brought  out  by  the  difference  indicated  in  the 
respective  ways  of  disposing  of  the  question  of  a  found- 
ation. 

In  what  respects,  then,  do  the  characters  of  the  two  builders, 
behaving  as  represented,  stand  in  contrast  ?  Obviously  in 
two  respects.  First,  the  wise  builder  has  a  prudent  regard  to 
the  future.  He  anticipates  the  coming  of  storms,  and  aims  at 
being  well  provided  against  these.  The  foolish  builder,  on 
the  other  hand,  thinks  only  of  the  present.  It  is  sunshine 
to-day,  and  he  recks  not  of  to-morrow  and  the  storms  it  may 
bring.  Then,  secondly,  the  wise  builder  looks  not  merely  to 
appearance.  The  question  with  him  is  not  what  will  look 
well,  but  what  will  stand.  The  foolish  builder,  on  the  con- 
trary, cares  for  appearance  alone.  A  house  without  a  founda- 
tion looks  as  well  as  one  having  a  foundation;  it  may  even  be 
made  to  look  better.  These  distinctions  have  their  counter- 
part in  the  spiritual  sphere,  which  form  the  salient  character- 
istics of  two  classes  of  men  both  professing  religion.  There 
are  those  who  have  forethought,  and  those  who  have  none ; 
those  who  think  of  the  trial  which  the  future  may  bring,  those 
who  think  only  of  to-day  and  its  bright  sunshine.  The  one 
class  count  the  cost  when  they  meditate  becoming  disciples  of 
Christ ;  the  other  receive  the  word  with  joy,  leaving  out  of 
view  the  'tribulations'  they  are  likely  to  encounter  in  the 
career  on  which  they  are  entering.     Again,  the  one  class  look 


ch.  vii.]  The  Ten   Virgins.  507 

to  what  is  not  seen  by  men  in  religious  character,  the  hidden 
foundation  of  inward  disposition  ;  while  the  other  consider 
only  what  can  be  seen  by  men,  the  outward  act.  The  outward 
acts  of  both  may  be  the  same,  but  the  motives  are  entirely 
different.  The  motive  of  the  one  is  love  of  goodness ;  that 
of  the  other,  vanity.  Both  pray,  but  a  man  of  the  one  class 
prays  in  secret,  his  desire  being  not  to  be  known  as  a  praying 
man,  but  to  get  the  favour  he  asks  of  Heaven  ;  a  man  of  the 
other  class  prays  by  preference  at  the  corner  of  the  street, 
desiring  chiefly  to  get  credit  for  a  devotional  spirit.  Both 
practise  beneficence  ;  but  the  one  from  love  or  pity,  and  with 
modesty  ;  the  other  not  so  much  sympathising  with  the  poor, 
as  seeking  a  reputation  for  philanthropy. 

Such  are  the  distinctive  attributes  of  the  wise  and  the  foolish, 
the  genuine  and  the  counterfeit,  in  religion.  The  marks  of 
the  one  are  forethought  and  sincerity,  or  depth ;  the  marks  of 
the  other  thoughtlessness  and  insincerity,  or  superficiality. 
The  two  sets  of  attributes  always  keep  company.  Sincerity 
implies  forethought,  and  forethought  sincerity ;  and  in  like 
manner  the  two  other  attributes  imply  each  other.  The  man 
who  has  regard  only  to  appearances  would  never  profess 
religion  at  all,  if  he  considered  the  future.  He  acts  from 
impulse,  imitation,  and  fashion,  and  the  use  of  religion  as 
a  support  in  trial  is  not  in  all  his  thoughts.  Hence  it  was 
that  Christ  so  often  presented  the  difficulties  of  the  spiritual 
life  to  those  who  offered  themselves  as  disciples.  It  was  His 
way  of  ridding  Himself  of  counterfeit  discipleship  originating 
in  by-ends  or  thoughtless  sentiment,  and  of  securing  that  His 
circle  of  followers  should  include  only  men  whose  religion  was 
an  affair  not  of  sentiment  alone,  but  of  reason  and  conscience, 
of  reason  looking  well  before,  and  of  conscience  realising 
moral  responsibility. 

The  parable  of  the  two  builders  shows  us  the  respective 
fates  of  these  two  classes.  Looking  to  appearances  it  would 
be  difficult  to  say  which  was  to  be  preferred  ;  perhaps  the 
verdict  would  be  in  favour  of  the  counterfeit,  for  they  make 
appearances  their  study,  and  it  is  not  wonderful  if  they  excel 
in  theii  own  line.  But  the  elements  judge  infallibly  and  ruth- 
lessly,   The  rains  descend,  the  floods  rush,  and  the  winds 


508  The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  ill 

blow,  and  the  house  built  on  a  rock  stands,  "it  fell  not ;"  b  it 
the  house  built  on  the  sand  "  fell,  and  great  was  the  fall  of  it ' 
The  elements  are  trials  of  all  sorts,  by  providential  calamities, 
by  religious  doubts,  by  sinful  desires,  by  tribulations  connected 
with  profession  of  religion.  Such  trials  the  man  of  forethought 
and  sincerity  stands ;  before  them  the  man  whose  piety  is 
imitative  and  impulsive  goes  down. 

Such  are  the  lessons  to  be  learnt  from  the  parable  of  the 
Wise  and  Foolish  Builders,  and  they  seem  to  us  fitted  to 
throw  light  on  the  parable  of  the  Wise  and  Foolish  Virgins. 
It  is  to  be  presumed  that  wisdom  and  folly  have  fixed 
characteristics  in  Christ's  teaching,  so  that  if  we  have  correctly 
determined  their  respective  attributes  in  any  one  place,  we 
may  expect  to  find  them  reappearing  in  all  other  places  where 
they  are  spoken  of.  They  do  reappear  in  the  parable  of  the 
virgins  if  we  decide  to  regard  the  going  to  buy  oil  as  an  act 
of  folly,  not  otherwise.  On  that  assumption  we  have  in  the 
parable  two  characteristic  acts  of  the  foolish  virgins  close  ol 
kin  to  each  other.  There  is  the  initial  act  of  taking  an 
inadequate  supply  of  oil,  wherein  is  revealed  characteristic 
want  of  forethought.  As  the  foolish  builder  did  not  anticipate 
storms,  but  acted  as  if  the  usual  good  weather  were  to  last 
always,  and  without  exception  ;  so  the  foolish  virgins  did  not 
anticipate  delay,  but  acted  as  if  the  usual  at  marriages  was 
sure  to  happen,  the  prompt  arrival  of  the  bridegroom  at  the 
appointed  time.  Then  there  was  the  iurther  act  of  folly 
consequent  on  discovering  the  evil  result  of  the  first,  that, 
viz.,  of  going  away  to  buy  oil,  instead  of  doing  without  it, 
and  joining  the  procession  so  as  to  insure  admission  to  the 
feast.  This  act  corresponds  in  general  character  to  that  of 
the  foolish  builder  in  having  regard  only  to  appearances,  and 
so  neglecting  to  provide  a  foundation.  It  is  the  act  of  persons 
to  whom  custom  is  an  inviolable  law.  These  foolish  virgins 
must  be  in  the  fashion,  must  attend  to  all  the  usual  cere- 
monies, must  have  their  lighted  lamps  as  well  as  the  rest. 
The  accidental  though  interesting  accompaniment  of  the 
y^<r\A^\  nro^p.qsion  is  to  their  custom-ridden  minds  the  essence 
of  tne  matter,  lr  would  look  so  ill  to  meet  sad  escort  the 
bridegroom  with  dark  lamps  in  their  hand.    The  two  acu 


ch.  m]  The  Ten    Virgins,  509 

of  folly  are  obviously  of  kindred  character,  so  that  those  who 
do  the  one  are  likely  to  do  the  other ;  they  both  denote 
enslavement  to  the  usual,  which  is  a  characteristic  mark  of 
the  morally  commonplace,  in  contrast  to  the  wise,  who  show 
their  wisdom  by  the  ability  to  anticipate  the  unusual  aa 
possible,  and  to  disregard  custom  when  it  stands  in  the  way 
of  the  attainment  of  a  great  end.  The  parable  affords  no 
scope  for  the  display  of  the  latter  phase  of  wisdom,  for  the 
wise  virgins  having  oil  enough  were  in  a  position  to  follow 
the  usual  custom,  and  of  course  did  it ;  for  to  set  aside  even 
the  least  commandment  of  fashion  unnecessarily  is  no  part 
of  wisdom.  But  it  is  true,  nevertheless,  that  the  wise  are 
distinguished  by  freedom  as  well  as  by  forethought  in  refer- 
ence to  the  usual.  They  are  incapable  of  being  enslaved  by 
superstitious  regard  for  that  which  is  only  of  secondary 
importance,  a  means  to  an  end,  an  affair  of  decorum  rather 
than  of  principle.  Such  freedom  belongs  to  wisdom  both 
in  social  life  and  in  religion.  On  the  other  hand,  the  lack 
of  such  freedom  is  a  sure  mark  of  the  weak  and  unwise. 
They  are  superstitiously  devoted  to  the  fashion  of  their  time 
in  religion  as  in  other  spheres.  Means  of  grace,  forms  of 
worship,  take  the  place  of  absolutely  binding  laws  in  their 
minds,  and  so  become  hindrances  rather  than  helps  in  the 
Divine  life.  They  understand  not  that  "  as  ceremonies,  such 
as  men  have  devised,  are  but  temporal ;  so  may  and  ought 
they  to  be  changed  when  they  rather  foster  superstition  than 
edify  the  Church  using  the  same."  *  They  think  all  change 
impious,  and  the  very  thought  converts  the  risk  into  a  baleful 
reality. 

It  may  appear  strange,  if  the  going  to  buy  oil  was  an  act 
of  folly,  that  Jesus  did  not  distinctly  indicate  the  fact  But 
was  it  not  enough  to  say,  once  for  all,  "  five  were  foolish  "  ? 
The  omission  to  characterise  the  second  act  as  foolish  is  a 
significant  recognition  of  the  persistency  of  character,  more 
instructive  than  the  repetition  of  the  epithet  foolish.  It 
signifies :  M  Take  care  to  possess  the  spirit  of  wisdom,  for 
remember  the  spirit  that  is  in  you  will  dominate  all  your 
conduct.     Ye  cannot  be  foolish  to-day,  and  wise  to-morrow  j 

*  '  Old  Scotch  Confession  of  Faith,'  ch.  xxi. 


510        The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,   [book  iil 

foolish  in  this  action,  wise  in  the  next.  Character  tends  to 
fixity,  and  to  get  the  benefit  of  wisdom  at  any  time  ye  must 
be  under  its  guidance  at  all  times."  A  great,  solemn  truth, 
to  be  seriously  pondered  by  all,  and  too  often  overlooked. 

As  now  explained,  the  present  parable  obviously  points  to  a 
species  of  degeneracy  to  be  manifested  in  the  Church  in  the 
course  of  ages  very  different  from  that  spoken  of  in  the  parable 
last  considered.  There  the  evil  foretold  is  a  hideous  combina- 
tion of  hypocrisy,  tyranny,  and  sensuality  ;  here  the  evil  hinted 
at  is  religious  superstition.  The  two  evils  manifested  them- 
selves together  in  the  Church,  the  one  among  the  clergy,  the 
other  among  the  illiterate.  The  latter  is  the  less  evil,  and  its 
doom  accordingly  is  milder.  The  foolish  virgins  are  simply 
shut  out  from  the  feast,  the  unfaithful  upper  servant  is  cut  in 
two.  The  lesser  doom  is  serious  enough,  and  it  is  one  to 
which  all  are  exposed  who  resemble  the  foolish  virgins  in 
their  religious  character.  The  slaves  of  use  and  wont  are 
ever  in  peril  of  their  souls,  ever  exposed  to  the  risk  of  exclu- 
sion from  the  joys  in  store  for  those  prepared  to  receive  the 
Bridegroom  at  His  coming  at  each  crisis  in  the  Church's 
history.  So  were  the  Pharisees  excluded  from  the  society  of 
Jesus,  which  was  a  veritable  wedding  party.  So  were  the 
Hebrew  Christians,  clinging  to  venerable  Jewish  customs  and 
ordinances,  in  danger  of  forfeiting  all  share  in  the  blessings  of 
the  Kingdom  of  Grace.  As  their  faithful  Teacher  warned 
them,  there  was  a  risk  of  their  being  carried  by  the  strong 
current  of  old  custom  away  from  Christ,  as  a  boat  is  carried 
down  a  river  past  the  landing-place  on  the  opposite  shore.1 
While  they  went  to  buy  at  the  Jewish  synagogue  the  Bride- 
groom might  come,  and  the  door  be  shut. 

The  slumber  of  the  virgins  is  a  feature  in  the  parable  which 
cannot  fail  to  attract  the  attention  of  all  thoughtful  readers. 
To  the  allegorising  interpretation  which  strives  to  discover  a 
spiritual  equivalent  for  every  feature  in  a  parable,  this  slumber 
denotes  the  negligence  which  overtakes  all  more  or  less  with  re- 
ference to  the  eternal,  venial  and  remedial  in  the  case  of  the  wise, 
fatal  in  the  case  of  the  foolish  ;  or,  the  common  sleep  of  death. 
To  others,  unable  to  acquiesce  in  either  of  these  suggestions,  and 

1  Heb.  ii.  I,  /*•»  irort  xapapvw/wv,  "  lest  haply  we  drift  away.  ' — R.  V. 


ch.  vii.}  The  Ten    Virgins.  511 

averse  from  the  allegorising  method  of  exegesis,  the  introduc- 
tion of  this  feature  appears  simply  a  device  for  bringing  about 
a  situation  involving  a  surprise  which  brings  disaster  to  the 
unprepared.  The  foolish  have  to  sleep,  because  had  they 
kept  awake  they  would  have  observed  that  their  oil  was  get- 
ting done,  and  have  provided  a  fresh  supply  in  good  time. 
The  wise  have  to  keep  their  foolish  sisters  company  in  slumber, 
that  they  may  escape  the  charge  of  unkindness  in  allowing 
the  sleepers  to  sleep  on  till  it  was  too  late  to  attend  to 
the  necessary  preparations.1  The  truth  lies  between  these 
extremes.  The  sleep  of  the  virgins  is  not  of  such  grave  sig- 
nificance as  the  allegorisers  imagine,  and  on  the  other  hand 
it  is  something  more  than  a  mere  device  for  bringing  about 
a  situation  necessary  to  the  moral  of  the  parable.  It  is  a 
meagre  view  which  sees  in  the  delay  of  the  bridegroom,  only 
a  contrivance  to  make  room  for  slumber,  and  in  the  slumber 
in  turn  only  a  contrivance  to  give  occasion  for  a  surprise.  The 
delay  of  die  bridegroom  represents  a  spiritual  fact ;  the  pro- 
tracted endurance  of  the  period  of  development,  and  the  con- 
sequent indefinite  postponement  of  the  consummation  of  the 
kingdom.  And  the  sleep  of  the  virgins  represents  the  natural 
inevitable  occupation  with  the  present  which  ensues  when 
through  long  delay  hope  or  expectation  of  a  future  good  has 
been  all  but  extinguished.  The  relevancy  of  the  parable 
requires  that  the  sleep  should  have  some  such  counterpart  in 
the  spiritual  sphere ;  for  if  the  fact  were  otherwise  we  should 
have  a  situation  described  to  which  there  is  no  parallel  in 
religious  experience.  The  sleeping  scene,  therefore,  besides 
being  thoroughly  true  to  the  natural,  has  an  important 
didactic  significance.  It  teaches  that  there  is  a  certain  sleep 
of  the  mind  with  regard  to  the  future  and  the  eternal  which  is 
unavoidable,  in  itself  perfectly  harmless,  yet  fraught  with 
danger  to  such  as  are  not  ever  ready  for  any  event,  so  that 
the  most  sudden  crisis  cannot  overtake  them  unawares.  The 
inevitableness  of  this  sleep  is  very  happily  brought  out  in  the 
delineation  of  the  scene.  The  word  all  itself  implies  it ;  the 
universality  suggests  the  idea  of  necessity.  Then  the  way  in 
which  sleep  comes  on  is  significant.  They  grow  drowsy,  then 
1  So  in  effect  Storr,  '  De  Parabolis  Christl' 


51a        The  Parabolic  Teaching  of  Christ,    [book  hi. 

begin  to  nod,  then  fall  into  deep  slumber.  The  sleep  is 
involuntary,  the  virgins  do  not  go  to  bed  with  deliberate 
intent  to  sleep,  they  are  overtaken  with  sleep  while  maintain- 
ing an  attitude  of  waiting,  like  the  disciples  in  the  garden, 
like  weary  sentinels  on  the  battle-field,  like  devout  worshippers 
in  church.  Fatigue,  advancing  night,  the  demands  of  nature, 
prevail  over  all  wakeful  influences.  Yet  these  are  by  no 
means  wanting.  For  the  virgins,  one  and  all,  are  full  of  the 
excitement  of  the  occasion.  To  see  them  one  would  say  that 
though  the  bridegroom  should  tarry  till  daybreak  sleep  will 
be  impossible  till  he  arrive  and  the  wedding  festivities  are 
over.  That  is  not  said,  but  it  goes  without  being  said  ;  it  is 
enough  to  remember  that  the  occasion  is  a  marriage,  and  that 
the  actors  in  the  drama  are  young  maidens.  The  innocence 
of  the  sleep  follows  of  course  from  its  being  unavoidable,  but 
it  is  also  taught  by  implication  when  in  the  sequel  the  wise 
virgins  are  represented  as  having  time  to  trim  their  lamps 
between  their  awaking  and  the  arrival  of  the  bridegroom. 
Sleep  in  their  case  does  not  interfere  with  the  efficient  per- 
formance of  all  needful  offices.  Yet  that  this  sleep,  though 
innocent,  may  be  dangerous  appears  from  what  befalls  the 
hapless  maidens.  They  awake  and  discover  that  neglected 
tasks  have  to  be  attended  to  when  there  is  no  time  for  their 
performance. 

The  parabolic  representation  at  this  point  is  characterised 
in  a  conspicuous  degree  by  that  felicity  on  which  we  have 
often  had  occasion  to  remark.  It  suggests  more  lessons  than 
it  is  expressly  designed  to  teach.  It  illustrates,  for  example, 
the  'sweet  reasonableness'  of  Christ's  teaching,  in  so  far  as 
it  exhibits  an  ideal  of  waiting,  not  too  exacting  for  human 
nature  under  the  conditions  of  this  present  life.  When  Christ 
requires  of  His  disciples  to  watch,  as  He  does  in  the  closing 
sentence  of  this  parable,  He  does  not  demand  exclusive  pre- 
occupation of  mind  with  the  future.  The  watching  required, 
we  learn  from  the  parable,  is  such  as  is  compatible  with  a 
very  complete  engrossment  with  the  present.  It  signifies 
timely  preparation,  ordering  life  on  a  right  principle  deliber- 
ately adopted  once  for  all.  It  involves  not  continuous  strain- 
ing of  the  attention  towards  the  eternal,  but  fixed  intention 


ch.  vii.]  The  Ten   Virgins.  $1$ 

active  even  when  we  are  unconscious.  The  tension  of  the 
mind  may  innocently  and  must  naturally  vary,  it  is  enough 
that  its  intention  is  ever  the  same,  enough  that  we  live  under 
the  power  of  the  future  and  the  eternal  even  when  not  thinking 
of  it.  This  is  quite  possible.  All  know  what  it  is  to  sleep 
under  the  power  of  the  thought  of  having  to  rise  at  a  par- 
ticular hour  in  the  morning.  The  slumber  is  light ;  there  is 
a  certain  semi-consciousness  all  through  the  night.  The 
slightest  whisper,  the  calling  of  one's  name  ever  so  gently, 
suffices  to  awaken  him  ;  nay,  in  some  mysterious  way  the 
latent  thought  of  the  engagement  in  prospect,  the  journey  to 
be  undertaken,  suffices  of  itself  to  perform  the  part  of  an 
alarum  clock,  and  to  rouse  the  sleeper  at  the  appointed  time. 
So  wise  virgins  sleep,  as  those  who  lie  down  with  the  thought 
in  their  minds  that  at  any  moment  they  may  hear  the 
thrilling  call:  "Behold  the  Bridegroom  1  come  ye  forth  to 
meet  Him." 

Christ's  ideal  of  watching,  though  eminently  and  character- 
istically reasonable,  is  too  high  for  many.  In  the  parable  one 
half  of  the  virgins  fail  to  realise  it,  but  in  real  life  the  propor- 
tion of  defaulters  is  much  larger.  The  number  of  those  who 
understand  the  art  of  watching,  providing  for  the  uncertain 
future,  for  the  unusual,  for  the  eternal,  while  living  healthily 
and  heartily  in  the  present,  is  small.  The  multitude  are  the 
slaves  of  the  usual ;  the  wise  man  who  can  anticipate  the 
unusual  and  prepare  for  it  is  one  among  a  thousand.  How 
many  accidents  by  land  and  sea  are  due  to  the  rarity  of  such 
wise  forethought!  Railway  accidents  happen  because  they 
are  exceptional,  and  officials  get  accustomed  to  their  not 
happening.  Sailors  on  the  outlook  observe  something  before 
them,  but  take  no  alarm.  They  think  it  is  a  cloud  when  it  is 
an  iceberg,  for  icebergs  are  not  usually  met  with  at  that  time 
of  the  year.  Their  mind  is  asleep  under  the  soporific  influence 
of  the  usual,  though  their  physical  senses  are  awake.  The 
same  cause  works  disastrously  in  the  spiritual  sphere.  Here 
it  is  specially  difficult  to  expect  the  unexpected,  and  specially 
dangerous  to  lack  the  power  to  do  so,  and  many  there  be  who 
fail.  The  young  Christian  does  not  expect  the  difficulties  and 
delays  connected  with  the  fulfilment  of  his  hopes  which  he  is 

LL 


514         The  Parabolic   Teaching  of  Christ,   [book  in 

destined  to  encounter,  and  when  they  occur  he  is  scandalised 
and  becomes  an  apostate.  Or  he  is  not  prepared  to  find  the 
life  of  the  spirit  passing  through  phases  markedly  different 
from  each  other,  and  he  clings  to  the  initial  stage  and  remains 
a  babe,  superstitiously  attached  to  forms  which,  once  means 
of  grace,  degenerate  into  mere  fetishes.  So  also  does  it  fare 
oftentimes  with  religious  communities.  They  lack  the  wisdom 
to  anticipate  and  provide  for  changes  in  the  course  of  develop- 
ment. These  when  they  come  find  them  enslaved  by  the 
past,  and  unprepared  to  meet  the  new  situation,  and  the 
inevitable  result  is  decay  and  death. 

In  parabolic  language,  the  doom  of  those  who  are  guilty  of 
such  folly  is  that  the  door  is  shut  not  to  be  opened  again  to 
them  when  they  arrive  too  late  and  seek  admission.  Taking 
the  parable  as  a  story  of  natural  life,  this  feature  seems 
arbitrary.  Children  ask  their  parents  the  hard  question, 
"  Why  could  he  not  open  the  door  ?  "  and  learned  interpreters 
ask  the  same  question  and  acknowledge  themselves  unable  to 
answer.1  When  the  representation  is  viewed  in  connection 
with  the  final  judgment  it  becomes  too  awful  to  speak  of,  and 
very  difficult  to  construe  with  other  Scriptural  teaching.  A 
recent  writer  remarks  that  the  exclusion  of  the  belated  virgins 
allegorically  interpreted  leads  to  the  wholly  unbiblical  thought 
that  even  the  most  earnest  desire  for  salvation  is  in  vain  when 
the  hour  of  decision  has  struck.  "  The  irreparabile  damnum  of 
the  'too  late'  in  this  sense  is  not  a  Biblical  doctrine."2  When 
one  thinks  of  the  penitent  thief,  he  is  conscious  that  the 
difficulty  is  not  imaginary.  Then  one  cannot  but  remember 
the  supplement  in  the  Pauline  teaching  to  the  doctrine  of 
exclusion  taught  in  the  parable  of  the  Great  Supper.  "  None 
of  those  men  which  were  bidden  shall  taste  of  my  supper," 
says  the  parable.  The  Jews  are  cast  out  pro  tempore,  and  the 
Gentiles  brought  in  to  provoke  the  former  to  jealousy,  that 
they  may  also  at  length  be  brought  in,  says  the  Apostle  Paul. 
Applying  Paul's  doctrine  to  the  present  parable  in  the  case  of 

1  Reuss  speaks  of  the  virgins  going  to  buy  oil  and  their  exclusion  as 
features  introduced  with  a  view  to  the  application  In  natural  life  they 
could  have  got  oil  in  the  house  of  the  bride,  and  they  would  have  been 
admitted  though  late. 

•  Weiss,  'Das  Matthaus-Evangelium.* 


ch.  vii.]  Tlie  Ten   Virgins.  $1$ 

the  Jews,  it  would  imply  that  that  people,  prevented  by  their 
prejudices  from  taking  part  in  the  bridal  procession,  would 
nevertheless  gain  admittance  to  the  feast  when  arriving  late 
they  cried,  "  Lord,  Lord,  open  to  us."  Without  doubt  the 
judgment  of  exclusion  in  its  temporal  application  is  not  in 
this  parable,  any  more  than  in  the  parable  of  the  Supper, 
absolute.  It  merely  indicates  tendency.  It  is  not  on  that 
account  trivial.  Even  the  temporal  losses  entailed  by  the 
lack  of  the  wisdom  commended  in  this  parable  are  grave 
enough  to  justify  serious  solicitude.  Leaving  the  eternal 
reference  out  of  account,  that  wisdom  is  highly  to  be  prized. 
in  view  of  eternity  its  value  is  unspeakable. 


T8S   89& 


BS2418.B8861886 

The  parabolic  teaching  of  Christ :  a 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


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